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MINOR CHORDS 



BEING SOME PROSE, POETICAL 
AND MUSICAL WRITINGS By 

DANIEL SPILLANE 

\ 




COLLECTED AND EDITED 
WITH A PERSONAL SKETCH, 
BY T. B. SPILLANE 



NEW YORK : 

THE EMPIRE PUBLISHING CO. 

3 East 14tli Street. 



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TO THE MEMORY 






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I^IdS" 



DANIEL SPILLANE 

POET, AUTHOR AND COMPOSER 

A soul like that of Orpheus who of old 

Sang love to all within Arcadian bow'rs ; 
A mind as rich in music's magic gold 

As summer is in sunshine and in flowers ; 
A genius that could cleave its destined way 

To highest heights beyond earth's prison bars, 
And soar amid a galaxy of stars, 

Had Death not come with ruthless glaive to slay ! 
Departed friend, and comrade of the days — 

When we were boys in Erin's Carberies 
On whose dear vales eternal verdures bloom — 

I'd wreathe for thee, if living, laureled bays — 
Dead, I can only weave thee lines Hke these 

Which I would lay with rev'rence on thy tomb I 

Eugene Davis. (Owen Roe.) 



COPIBIGHT MOMII. 
BY J. B. BPILLANE 




TN launching forth this volume to modestly perpet- 
uate the memory of Daniel Spillane, the writer 
bespeaks for it a kindly reception and a loving an- 
chorage among friends. The work that is here im- 
perfectly performed should have been done a long 
time ago and would have been done had not several 
obstacles interposed. 

It would have been more appropriate, perhaps, 
to have "Let worthier hands than these his wreath 
entwine," but the relationship that existed between 
the writer and Daniel Spillane was closer even than 
that of a brother. For thirty years he was the in- 
separable companion, the loyal friend, in whose joys 
and ambitions, as well as disappointments and sor- 
rows, the writer shared. None knew or loved him 
better. 



FOREWORD. 

The writings here collated are principally poet- 
ical. Some of them appeared during the writer's 
life in various publications and are duly credited in the 
body of the volume, but the greater part are posthu- 
mous. In this connection it is pertinent to emphasize 
that Daniel Spillane espoused poetry only a few years 
before bis death, and then largely as a pastime — a 
relief from more serious occupations — although not 
a few of his efforts have come in for a generous meed 
of praise. 

Hence, what is garnered within these covers may 
be properly characterized as shavings from a literary 
work-bench, which have been rescued because in many 
of them will be recognized the reflex of Daniel Spil- 
lane's mind — its purity — its healthy aspiration — that 
uplifting sentiment that touches the heart. For, as 
Dickens says, "It is an exquisite and beautiful thing 
in our nature, that when the heart is touched and soft- 
ened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, 
the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully 
and irresistibly. It would almost seem as though our 
better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in vir- 
tue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague 
and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those 
whom we daily loved in life." 

While many of these poems have been "edited," 



FOREWORD. 

no attempt at radical revision has been undertaken, 
as the writer believes it preferable to preserve the 
structure and individuality, even if insignificant tech- 
nical errors exist. It is obvious they must suffer for 
want of that superior revision which the author's 
pen alone could bestow. 

These writings have been selected in preference 
to some of Daniel Spillane's unpublished prose works, 
as they reveal him in a new and pleasing light. The 
essay, "The Reflections of Myyrah the Mystic," which 
has been included in the volume, has a special and 
sacred interest, as it marked his last informal literary 
labors. 

If, through the publication of this volume, the mem- 
ory of Daniel Spillane is kept brighter and his achieve- 
ments better illuminated, the writer will have been 
amply rewarded for his efforts. 

J. B. Spillane. 

New York, January i, 1902. 



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POEMS : 

MINOR CHORDS 31 

KING MAMMON 34 

MERCY • 35 

TERRY m'hAYDEN's WOOING 37 

COMPENSATION 39 

CONSTANCY 43 

THE OLD veteran's STORY 45 

A MORAL "potentiality" 49 

A LETTER FROM SWATE TIPPERARY • • • • 53 

ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND 56 

THE poet's MISSION 57 

THE UNSPEAKABLE 58 

HEROES OF THE HEART 59 

'"truth IS omnipotent" 60 

LESTER WALLACK 61 

THE storm and THE DAY 62 



contents. 

the price of genius 65 

unchangeableness 66 

franz liszt ^7 

"love's old^ old tale"' 68 

matt carew's proposal 69 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM 71 

THE OLD PIANO 75 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF STRIFE 76 

CONSOLATION 77 

THE NEW SPRING 79 

WORLD-WORN HEARTS 80 

THE SOUL OF TRUTH 81 

GONE AND DEAD 82 

AN INVOCATION 83 

MONEY 85 

futurity 87 

"slim my"' Thompson's sister sue .... 88 

looking for*ward 9 1 

solicitation 92 

molly bray 93 

decoration day 95 

loss and gain 95 

contemplation 97 

poems set to music : 

THE MUSICIAN lOI 

JOCKEY m'tAVISH . . . I06 

JUST AS OF OLD IO9 

'tis freedom's FLAG II5 

THE SINGING SANDS OF DONNIE 117 

REFLECTIONS OF MYYRAH THE MYSTIC .... 121 



»^3* 




cAn (Appreciation 






N these pages I fain would pluck some memory flow- 
ers to weave into a chaplet to lay upon the tomb of 
Daniel Spillane, as a tribute to that kind and loving 
spirit whose genius and goodness influenced all who 
came within its sphere. How inadequate, however, 
are words — or at least how lacking is my ability to 
command them, so that I may fittingly do his memory 
justice. 

Since childhood's sunny days, when the future was 
undreamt of and the present ever bright, Daniel Spil- 
lane's career, from an intellectual or spiritual view- 
point, was one of constant striving after a knowledge 
of men and things. Year after year, as ideal after 
ideal was attained, he created new ones and labored 
tirelessly on, never murmuring at the multitudinous 
impediment's in life's roadway, but ever seeking for 



IS 



MINOR CHORDS. 

the greater knowledge that marks the Hne of demar- 
cation between man and man. 

A strange combination of the spiritual and practical 
was his. Keenly sensitive to the influences of gener- 
ous human deeds, of nature, and the tenderest touch 
of art, the mystic spirit that is in creation could play 
upon him at his will and sound what stops it pleased. 
Yet, on the other hand, there was the analytical or 
practical side — the persistent seeking after facts, af- 
ter truth ; the ambition to become master of whatever 
he engaged in, whether in mechanics or literature. 
This side of Daniel Spillane's character is best re- 
vealed in his labors as a historian. One of our leading 
critics, writing of his "History of The American 
Pianoforte" said: 

"Mr. Daniel Spillane has the talent of a story-teller. 
In his 'History of the American Pianoforte' he gives 
us special history with an investment of general in- 
terest. Who does not know the piano as a musical in- 
strument? It is to-day a part of the life of the tene- 
ment house as well as the mansion. The millionaire 
enshrines it in his parlors with inlays of ivory aad 
pearl, and with panelings made precious by the brush 
and chisel of genius. The working man hires it from 
month to month for the service of his dowerless 
daughters and his own pleasure in the brief interval 

i6 



AN APPRECIATION. 

between his day's toil and the rest which shall recu- 
perate him for the labor of to-morrow. The piano 
gives mechanical voice to the higher aspirations of 
the people, because it has within it a charm of melody 
which appeals directly to the heart, where art and 
literature demand, also, an exercise of educated 
thought. Mr. Spillane's work is not only good read- 
ing, but it is valuable reading. The story it tells is 
one so well worth telling that the wonder is it has. 
escaped so long." 

Daniel Spillane had the ability to execute prodigious 
tasks with amazing celerity, and he possessed an am- 
ple and ready command of the resources of literary 
art. An impediment in speech, most marked in youth, 
played no insignificant part in forming his character. 
It produced an abnormal sensitiveness of mind which 
kept him much to himself, studying instead of indulg- 
ing in the outdoor sports and pleasures so customary 
to those of college years. Omnivorous reading and a 
healthy mental digestion, combined with a love for 
self-communion, laid the foundation for a mind that 
in maturity M^as gifted with a delicacy of feeling, an 
innate refinement, and a fertility and appropriateness 
of expression that reflected the best sentiments of the 
soul. To him the earthly realities or material things 
of life were of secondary interest. He never paltered' 



17 



MINOR CHORDS. 

with nor fawned on the tedious little self-constituted 
potentates with whom the avenues of society are in- 
fested. In political, religious and social affairs he was 
ever on the side of truth and right — a hater of sham 
and hypocrisy and a humble worker in the broad 
field of altruism. 

That the dry details of a man's life which can be 
stated are but poorly adequate to convey a full sense 
of what that life really was, particularly when the 
more important part of it was his intellectual and 
spiritual experience — is a truth which receives addi- 
tional illustration in this sketch. The history of Dan- 
iel Spillane's mind is written, to a large extent, in his 
works, and they are the most potent expression of the 
man. 

It was in the year 1861, and near Cork, Ireland, that 
Daniel Spillane was born. His youthful days were 
spent in environment which helped to stimulate the 
love for literature and music which was inherent in 
his nature. At a very early age he manifested decided 
musical genius, and before he reached his tenth year 
he displayed surprising facility of execution on various 
instruments of the orchestral family. During the two 
years following he became master of almost all the in- 
struments in the band of which his father was instruct- 
or, and later devoted his attention to a study of in- 



AN APPRECIATION. 

strumentation — scoring: numerous compositions for 
military bands. When fifteen years of age he com- 
posed and arranged several compositions for full band 
which were purchased on their merits and published 
by Richard Smith & Son, of Hull, England. The best 
tribute to his work at this early age is the very compli- 
mentary letter sent him by Messrs. Smith & Son. A 
year later he composed several pianoforte pieces, 
which were published b}'^ Riviere & Hawkes, London, 
England. Wishing to extend his knowledge and se- 
cure a broader field for his labors he crossed over to 
London in 1880 where he continued his study of com- 
position and harmony, and spent some time inciden- 
tally among piano manufactories for the purpose of 
attaining a mastery of pianoforte construction. 

In 1883 he resolved to seek his fortune in the United 
States, and in the early part of that year came to New 
York. He soon became connected with the piano bus- 
iness, there acquiring knowledge which proved useful 
to him in his subsequent career. Ambitious and of 
scholarly tastes, he meanwhile devoted all his spare 
time to study. He became a student of the piano, its 
literature and history, and the result was many im- 
portant contributions to the musical press. 

In the course of time he recognized, in common with 
the piano trade at large, the absence of any reliable 



19 



MINOR CHORDS. 

authority upon the evolution of the American piano- 
forte and the industry in this country, and in 1888 he 
commenced to collect facts and data for a "History of 
the American Pianoforte," which he published in 1890. 
This was no ordinary piece of literary work, and only 
people who have essayed the task or gone over the field 
mentally can estimate the vast amount of work and re- 
search entailed in the compilation and writing of a 
volume of this peculiar character, no investigations 
previous to his own having been made, nor any facts 
published beyond a few insignificant fragments. A 
practical knowledge of the mechanism of the piano, 
aided by an excellent literary style, enabled him to put 
forth a volume of some three hundred and seventy 
pages, which has been characterized by the musical 
and general press, as a most significant addition to mu- 
sical literature. It received the highest praise from 
the press as well as the members of the industry inter- 
ested, both in this country and Europe, and "The His- 
tory of the American Pianoforte" immediately took 
its place and is to-day recognized as a standard work. 
Through his efforts the remote history of the Ameri- 
can piano industry, its antecedents and its people, were 
rescued from oblivion, while many rare and novel 
facts were brought to light, all of interest and value 
to the historian of American musical art. His labors 



AN APPRECIATION. 

in this connection were eloquently summed up by Mr. 
A. J. Hipkins, the eminent European authority on 
musical instruments and one of the editors of the En- 
cyclopaedia Brittanica who wrote Mr. Spillane: "I 
have read your 'History of the American Pianoforte.' 
It is a remarkable work written with singular ability 
and impartiality, and I shall be glad to refer to it 
should I have occasion in any future contribution I 
may make to piano history." 

Not alone by the musical profession were the merits 
of this work acknowledged, but the Hon. Grover 
Cleveland, ex-President of the United States, paid Mr. 
Spillane the signal honor of quoting extensively from 
his work in an address delivered at a banquet held in 
this city, April 24th, 1890. He also forwarded him 
the following autograph letter : "I think your work is 
a very valuable addition to the scant information we 
previously had of the beginning and growth of a very 
important industry." President Cleveland's opinion 
was reinforced by the kindly words of other men of 
equal prominence in the musical and trade worlds. 

After this period Mr. Spillane devoted his entire 
time to journalistic and literary work and became a 
regular contributor to musical and dramatic papers in 
this city, acting also as New York representative for 
a London musical monthly. His contributions upon 



MINOR CHORDS. 

dramatic and musical matters, and technical and scien- 
tific subjects pertaining to musical instruments, com- 
manded at all times the most favorable and laudatory 
notices from the press and reading public. In the ser- 
ies of noteworthy articles on "The Development of 
American Industries Since Columbus" published in 
The Popular Science Monthly during 1892, Air. Spil- 
lane was selected out of numerous distinguished au- 
thorities to write the articles on pianos, organs, band 
and orchestral instruments, which ran in that maga- 
zine during February, March and April. These art- 
icles displayed his thorough knowledge — both techni- 
cal and historic — of the subjects treated, and were on 
the whole so comprehensive that they further estab- 
lished his ability as a writer and student of musical 
history. In the meantime, aside from his work on 
musical papers, he contrilDuted from time to time spec- 
ial articles, critiques and poems to the Century, New 
England Magazine, Catholic World, The Theatre and 
Truth (under its former management), a few of 
which are reproduced in this volume, and numerous 
short stories and general articles to newspapers. In 
November 1892 his book "The Piano" was published. 
This is recognized to-day as a standard technical and 
scientific work — leading figures in the piano industry 
have given it their warmest commendation. About 



AN APPRECIATION. 

this time he also finished an important work of about 
three hundred pages which he had been engaged on 
for over two years, entitled, "American Musicians of 
Our Time." This, as its name implies, is a series of 
biographies of the eminent musicians of this country. 
During the summers of 1888, 1890 and 1892 Mr. 
Spillane represented several New York papers during 
his stay in Europe, from which place he contributed 
a series of weekly letters on trade, musical and kindred 
topics which attracted the widest notice. Early in 
1893 he became connected with The Music Trade Re- 
view as associate editor, and in addition to his general 
editorial work, he contributed a series of technical arti- 
cals on the piano and the development of the parlor 
organ. In July of the same year he became editor of 
The Keynote, a monthly musical magazine, and during 
his brief connection with that paper he stamped his 
individuality on its pages, and would undoubtedly have 
materially augmented his fame had not death unex- 
pectedly stepped in and robbed his family and large 
circle of friends of one of the best and noblest of men. 
Daniel Spillane's short, but busy life, terminated on the 
evening of October 21st, 1893. His death, shocking 
in its suddenness, was due to exhaustion caused by 
inability to rally from a surgical operation. 

It will not be deemed inappropriate to introduce 



23 



MINOR CHORDS. 

here part of the graceful and lengthy tribute paid his 
memory by his chief and associate, Mr. Edward 
Lyman Bill, whose friendship and esteem he cher- 
ished, as does the writer to-day : 

"A bright young life, full of hope and promise, 
is ended. Daniel Spillane is dead. Death at all times 
is sad, but the sadness is intensified when the grim de- 
stroyer claims for his own a young, gifted man, just 
on the threshold of a brilliant career. Daniel Spillane 
was a rare combination in this work-a-day world. His 
was a noble mind clothed in a sensitive frame. Since 
his association with The Music Trade Review, 
everyone connected with this office had grown to en- 
tertain towards him feelings of deep regard, and each 
saw in him much to respect and admire, and it was 
with saddened hearts we received the mournful mes- 
sage telling of his demise. Mr. Spillane was a man 
of distinguished bearing, frank and open in his ad- 
dress ; his eyes were bright and sparkling, and seemed 
to mirror forth the brilliancy of his intellect and the 
tender, sympathetic nature within. His was a sensi- 
tive and refined mind, abhorring vulgarity in every 
form. His heart was overflowing with generous im- 
pulses. A man to honor — a man — faithful — loyal — 
true." 



24 



AN APPRECIATION. 

While the foregoing was born of tender regard 
and an intimate knowledge of the man, the following 
excerpt from Freund's Musical Weekly, based not 
upon personal acquaintance with Daniel Spillane, but 
rather upon his writings, gives a fair idea of the posi- 
tion he held among his contemporaries: 

"With the death of Mr. Daniel Spillane the trade 
loses one of its best known and ablest writers. Theo- 
retically and practically, Mr. Spillane was a writer 
of rare excellence. He wielded a pen of unusual force. 
With the limpid grace of a poet's thought he touched 
upon matters appertaining to a craft, and in such man- 
ner as to vivify them, and make them interesting to 
the lay reader. His 'History of the American Piano' 
covers a vast field of research, and every line of it 
betrays the student. His ideas were always clear, 
explicit and full of ingenious expression. 

"The science of acoustics he had mastered, and 
his exposition of this subtle study is one of the most 
entertaining specimens of writing on a purely techni- 
cal topic which we have ever seen. As an all-round 
journalist Mr. Spillane was an expert." 

Indeed, page after page could be filled with ex- 
cerpts from the eulogistic notices which appeared in 
some thirty papers in this country and in Europe in 



25 



MINOR CHORDS. 

connection with Daniel Spillane's death, in which his 
ripe scholarship, fine literary tastes and industry were 
appreciatively discussed. It is hardly necessary to do 
so. Meanwhile, all the kind and sympathetic words 
expressed by the press have been and will be ever 
treasured. 

Many pretty songs and instrumental compositions 
for the pianoforte, which were published in this city 
and London, England, are to the credit of Daniel 
Spillane. He left a large number of unpublished 
songs and pianoforte pieces, also compositions scored 
for military band and orchestra. Aside from the con- 
tents of this present volume his other manuscripts in- 
clude a novel of some three hundred pages ; a volume 
of satirical sketches after Thackeray's "Book of 
Snobs ;" a series of essays entitled "Lights and Shad- 
ows of Musical History," on the development of form 
— oratorio, opera, cantata, and the various instrumen- 
tal, vocal and composite forms which maintain distinct 
positions in the aesthetics and philosophy of music ; a 
number of short stories, technical articles, as well as 
several dramas and two farce comedies. One of his 
plays, a dramatization of a novel by Sir Walter Besant,, 
was presented to the distinguished novelist for his 
opinion, and his criticism of the work was so highly 
complimentary and practical that he volunteered to aid 

26 



AN APPRECIATION, 



in its production either in London or New York. 
Alas, Sir Walter, with honors and fame secure, has 
also crossed the river Styx, which is "always silently 
Tollins: on to a vast undiscovered ocean." 



'& 



Daniel Spillane was a tireless worker, and his liter- 
ary labors in the few years of his life furnish evidence 
of an industry that may be termed remarkable. He 
was just on the threshold. His position in life was as- 
sured and ripening. Time no doubt would have im- 
proved his Muse, would have broadened and mellowed 
its tones and made it vocal with yet more heavenly 
emotion. The noble instrument was too soon broken ; 
the life that promised so much was too soon quenched 
in the darkness of the grave. Nevertheless, in what 
was uttered and what is now preserved there lives a 
refined and buoyant soul of beauty. He died young 
when his vigorous constitution gave hope of years of 
life before him, in which his unquestionable genius 
would have given to the world the best that was in 
him. Why such shadows should fall where sunshine 
made all things joyous is one of those impenetrable 
mysteries that forever remain unsolved. 

God's ways seem dark, but soon or late 
They touch the shining hills of day. 

Vale, the companion of a lifetime, a wise and gener- 

27 



MINOR CHORDS. 

ous counsellor, and the kindliest, most loving and best 
of brothers: 

Thou art not idle : in thy higher sphere 
Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, 

And strength, to perfect what it dreamed of here. 
Is all the crown and glory that it asks. 





Crory reamed and silver cloudlets, tuned in fleecy uni- 
sons. 

The setting sun-orb stealing backwards down the 
heaven's grade 

In dread and shame commingled lest the blossom 
plants — those ones 

That need his warmth — should, waking, droop and 
pine. Soft music, played 

In crooning songlets by the gentle winds, has nursed 
their sleep, 

And so they slumber while the shadows surge. Like 
patient maid 

Or watchful mother, now assured, it drops behind the 
steep 

Blank netherside of Earth from sight. His sentinels, 
the starSj 

Hung 'round upon the universe, absorb, as mite re- 
flects, 

And reproduce the light anew in tend'rer rays. No 
jars 



31 



MINORCHORDS. 

Of world noise, blaspheme the holy calm around. Like 

specks. 
Far off the woodlands rise in shadow on the valley's 

crest. 
Weird spirit forms cradled in the misty founts of 

thought 

Are here, — the silent night is theirs, then tired man 's 

at rest, — 

***** 

— And walking through that world's night I listened, 
wrought 

With pain of loneliness. Emotions strange surged in 
my breast — 

Too strange to shape to words or art. Here, reason's 
sway 

Was naught. I gazed far up and hence, and tried to 
measure all 

Whate'er I saw or felt by reasoning rules, but failed. 
The fray 

Of egotisms, clashing in my soul grew stilled. A wall 

Of mystery was spread before my sight. In vain, aday ! 

I tried to scale those peaks. "Alas !" thought I, "how 
vain are we 

Of human clay, how little do we know. Alike a pall, 

The circling tides of fate surround our steps. Above, 
a sea 

Of worlds stretch 'way in haze, vast as our most om- 
niscient hope. 

And far more wondrous. And yet, rave we not child- 
ishly? — 



32 



MINOR CHORDS. 

— We measure life and death by compound rule, and 

blindly grope 
In sophist's phrase, with what we can't unseal." 

And walking so 
Within that lonely night, I sought to read the narrow 

scope 
Of man's perspectiveness. I gazed far up anon; the 

glow 
And glory of the stars had gone. A little lake, long 

wrapt 
In shadow, spread unwrapt in sight, veiled in a misty 

snow 
Of beams. I paused to worship the divinity enmapped 
Far out before mine eyes, on hill and plain ; for from 

a veil 
Of dawn-dim mists, the new-born day was rip'ning^ 

faintly capped 
By grayish fading clouds. I turned to go. The bells. 

began 
To toll for toil. Far o'er the town the smoke stole 

through the trees. 
Alack ! the spell had past, I was again but toiling man,. 



MINOR CHORDS. 



KING MAMMON. 



Oh say, you patriots, if democracy — 

Th' ideal that your fathers fought for on 

These shores, the hope of millions and the light 

That came to lead humanity to heights 

Beyond our gauge — is worshipped in the now. 

Is "a man a man for a' that" in the sense 

The poet master writes ; are excellence 

And all the attributes of Truth the tests 

By which we measure men of to-day ; are 

The "higher classes" in our land beyond 

Their brethren in a sense of abstract good, 

In genius, or in special virtue ? Ah ! 

'Tis sad to see that manhood and the grand 

True meaning of democracy is dead 

Or past from out the pale of deeds. Instead 

Of human Kings we have King Mammon here. 

He fills all space and purpose in the realms 

Of our philosophy of cant; he rules 

Far o'er our land where once the fathers hoped 

To light an everlasting torch, to show 

The world Christ's own truths. King Mammon reigns 

Instead, and worth and honor lead no more. 

He opes the door of preference to all. 

With gold we earn all prerogatives 

And purchase all the choicest favors here. 

Alas ! We're drunk with the success that comes 

From out the ground in wealth, and cannot doubt 

The mirror of the truth ; our paean of praise 



34 



MERCY. 

Unto the sender of all bounties has 

A flippant and material poise of joy 

Like a low pot-house song. Our logic has 

A many-sided shape. Our better class 

Is that which has the greatest gold, our rule 

Is colored with the trickery of wealth, 

Our voters but the superstitious tools 

Of parties, in the hopes of gathering spoils — 

And so the world wags. Is this the best 

That you can do ? Are these results the light 

That comes from freedom of the soul and mind ■ 



MERCY. 
I. 
O Mercy ! angel of the v/ilderness 

Surrounding man ; pure spirit of the vast 

Unsolved, trackless world, in which we're cast 
By unknown powers, for good or evil — this 
We cannot fathom here ; how could hope kiss 

Belief in human hearts if all was massed 

And sodden blackness ; if the virtues passed 
Away before sheer unbelief ; if bliss 
And faith in good had not been given to 

Us humankind ; or, if, when passion's breath 
Surge o'er and sink into men's souls, to brew 

Within a hell, thou, Mercy, didst not — set 
In radiant rays — dawn in our way anew. 

To bring fresh trust, to ease our load to death ? 



35 



MINOR CHORDS. 
II. 

O Mercy ! spirit of the higher way, 

What would the world be if passion's slaves, 
And tyrant-kind, were not subdued by waves 

Of peace-flowers, hid in music's softest May 

Of song,, nursed by thy wand ; what would the day 
Of battle bring, when Right 's o'ercome,when quaves 
The soul of pow'rless man, while passion raves 

Supreme, if thou, O Mercy, didst not stay 

The hand of rude unthinking Force by gleams 
Spoke to brute hearts, in thy mysterious tongue ; 

And yet, how could the right — that man redeems 
By force so oft — be tuned to Justice, sung 

To higher purposes, if Mercy's beams 

Were not within the heart of Nature strung? 

III. f 

O Mercy! angel-spirit of the poor. 

Thou ministrant that whispers kindly deeds 
To all, to bid us strive to m.end the needs 

Of all our suffering brethren here, to cure 

Their sorrows and their ills, thou art all pure, 
Immaculate, with Christ's potential seeds 
Of boundless love, that knew no special creeds 

In dispensating good ; yet thou'rt in newer 

And broader missions rapt beyond what we 
Can see or tell ; thou'rt everywhere at once 

Like Nature's vast ethereal energy. 

That lives within ourselves. What vast romance 

Or poet's eulogy could give to thee 

Thy meed, O Mercy ; I shrink from the chance. 



^6 



TERRY MHAYDENS WOOING. 

TERRY McHAYDEN'S WOOING.* 

"Arrah ! jewel sure, Eileen, I swear by me troth 
That the sun has been stealin' bright sparks from your 

eye, 
And the pure soul that peeps through that iligant spot 
— There are two of them spots on yer face — faith I'd 

die 
To be joined to for life ; for I'm sure 'tis meself 
Would be peepin' at heaven when gazin' far down 
In the glorified depths of yer eyes. Yet a pelf 
I'd commit sure. — I'm selfish to seek such a crown. 

"Ah! thin Eileen, don't turn 'way yer iligant face, 
Sure I don't praise yer eyes and their beauty alone; 
For yer soul plays in glory all over the space 
Of yer nate rounded cheeks. Then yer mouth — ochl 

I moan 
For the want of a word to describe the quare charm 
That comes into me heart when its glory I scan 
And, och ! Eily, yer hair an' yer taperin' arm 
Sure they ne'er were excelled since the world began. 

"An' yer figure an' form! Then begor one should 

peep 
At the art works in Rome to behold them surpassed. 
Then yer bosom, — och, murther! what language can 

leap 
To the call of me tongue for to paint it — 'Twas cast, 
No mistake, for a goddess above, so I think. 

♦Published in the Century Mag^azine. 

37 



MINOR CHORDS. 

And yer — Murther! me lips are now dumb fer to say 
What I think of yer foot — Oh! don't blush so like 

pink, 
Eileen Connor — Yet you look so much purtier that 

way." 

"Och! then Terence McHayd'n yer blarnified tongue 
Like the bard of Dunloe as he sings of the past 
Would deludher the birds from the bushes, that sung 
Round the old fairy moat all the summer. Sure, cast 
Is me heart 'gainst these bonified words; for no girl 
Could live on swate ranterin' praises alone, 
An' no doubt, you've been wanderin' round in a whirl 
Sayin' iligant things to the girls of Athlone." 

Here fair Eileen made pretence to hasten away 
In mock anger that made her look ten times as sweet. 
But, Terry her hand seized in tenderest clasp 
As he flung himself ardently down at her feet. 
"Oh then, Eileen, be mine — darlint Eily ! I've love 
Sure for you an' an iligant farm in mind 
An' " — here Eileen fell into his arms, like a dove 
Saying, "Och, Terry, you should come long ago to the 
pint." 



COMPENSATION. 

"COMPENSATIO N." * 

How swift time flies ! It seems but yestere'en. 
Since you and I were boys, Ned ; yet how green 
The old woods seem this blessed, smiling day ! 
How young the little river 's yet. Its play 
Goes on as ever through the hazel glen, 
Made musical by its sweet babbling din 
Of prattle, as it onward flows, like life, 
Towards the mother sea. 

Ah me ! what strife 
We two have met, Ned, since the long ago ! 
What toil our hands have done ; what direful woe 
We've faced and met with darkened hearts, and lips 
Clenched tightly as the storm-cloud broke ! Some sips 
Of joy we've drunk betimes — perhaps enough, 
Old friend, to make the sorrow seem more rough 
And blackened by the contrast. 

What a world ! — 
What mystery the hand of time unfurled 
Before our eyes, Ned ; yet we're but of clay, 
And made, you know, 'tis said, to be the play — 
The sport of fate. It matters little; we 
Have stood the hustling long, complacently, 
Till now our limbs have shrunken into bands 
Of tightened muscles ; till our quavering hands 
Have lost responsiveness unto the will. 
Now sorrow finds no chords to idly thrill, — 

*Hugo has somewhere said that there is an eternal Law of Compensation 
operating in nature ; which eloquently suggests to us that human misery- 
in the individual is amply compensated for in the same order. 

39 



MINOR CHORDS. 

No nerves to touch with cruel hand, save one — 
The link which binds us twain unto the gone 
And misty past. 

Alas ! we've heard the wail 
Of death full often down yon little vale. 
We've followed, Ned, old friend, those ones that fell — 
Our dearest ones — and laid them down 'mid knell 
Of mourning bells, with folded hands, to rest. 
We've seen them fade away, Ned, to the blest 
And silent land we know not of. Yet we 
Sit here, Ned — you and I — while jovial glee 
And God's own light of life lives in the flowers. 
Reincarnated within golden showers 
Of beams, shed from the sun ; while nature's breast 
Is decked again with new-born wreaths. In zest 
Of joy the young birds sing, — 

But Ned, 'tis so — 
'Tis so the world goes. Look you down below 
And glance upon the fair young ripening maids 
Just passing hence and fro. The lights and shades 
Of life they know naught of, but careless play 
As we once played, Ned. Soon enough the gray 
And darkened heights will loom on their world-eyes; 
They walk in shadow, misty phantoms rise 
About their paths — 

But hush ! I read a tale, 
A message deep, profound as nature's hale 
And hoary cliffs of time, which speaks to all 
Of perpetuity. For so the call 
That means our parting, Ned — the call of doom — 



40 



COMPENSATION. 

May bring our spirit souls into the womb 

In which all life is incarnated newer 

And pure to be reborn, or e'en in truer 

Guise materialized, — perhaps in one 

Sweet concrete soul of higher mold. Hope on, 

For life is infinite as are the stars 

And served for all eternity. Men's wars 

Or pains count little in the vastful aim 

Of him who ruleth all. We've played our game 

As best we could and fearless face the end, 

Believing God is just. So when the trend 

Of old mortality goes this way, Ned, 

'Twill find us undismayed. We have no dread 

Of that which bore our dearest ones afar. 

Aye, Ned! I feel your answ'ring hand-clasp jar 

With trembling sympathy. 

See, what a breath 
Of heav'n surrounds us! See, the flow'rets ope 
To drink the distilled joy; sweet heliotrope 
And mignonette are here; they'll still abound 
To mingle in fair summer wreaths. The ground 
Has blossomed 'neath the subtle charm of God 
To beauty, fresh and sweet as e'er His rod 
Brought forth. Joy does not fly hence with the fall 
Of Autumn leaves, but lives hid in the thrall 
Of heaven's mysteries. And Nature's ways 
With fruits and plants so speak to all who gaze 
Aloft and crave discernment, of peace 
Supreme — of living life to never cease 
While summers come and go ; to be and love 



41 



MINOR CHORDS. 

With light and flow'rs, — mayhap to sometimes rove 
In darksome spheres, — 

But, Ned, we long have done 
Our penance here in gloom, — the gladd'ning sun 
Of day has little shone for us. We've toiled 
In curtained rooms for bread, yet lightly smiled 
At fate meanwhile with grimful fortitude. 
Now cometh our turn, Ned, old friend. The rude 
Realities of world-life all shall change 
Some day to bliss. We'll walk through pathways 

strange, 
Death's terrorless for us. And if we stray 
Apart and know each other not, to say 
Kind greeting such as now, I'll seek you ne'er 
In guise of man's rough shape, — we'll leave that here^. 
'TIs made of earthly clay, — for well I know 
That all our kindred souls above shall grow 
New eyes to see ; shall learn a purer speech. 
Thus shall we meet. Let's hope anew to reach 
That stage, we'll worship the fair light of truth. 
And calmly wait. There are fair worlds of youth 
Up in the somewhere of the skies. Depend, 
There's better luck in store for us, old friend. 



CONSTANCY. 



CONSTANCY.* 

Robin Grant wooed Jean McCloy 
Years agone, with patient joy, 

'Mid the Ayrshire heather. 
Ne'er so trusting love as she; 
He the soul of constancy 

Through all sorts of weather. 

"Jean," sang he, "my lassie love, 
You v/ill be to me above 

All the lassies living; 
I will always be to you 
Laddie Robin, sweetheart true, 

Love smiles ever giving. 

"Though the world may bring us pain, 
Though the future years contain 

Hidden troubles brewing, 
We will cheat them with a song, 
Fearless in the right, and strong, 

Live thus ever wooing." 

Blue-eyed Jean but lowered her head — 
Pretty head — and shyly said 

"Robin, sweetheart laddie, 
I shall be your wifie e'er, 
Loving you for ever mair ; 

You please speak to Daddie!" 



*Published in The Keynote. 

43 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Two-score years have passed since then, 
Robin true and Jean have been 

Loving as young lovers ; 
Time, too, brought them sorrow sore, 
Troubles came, small trace or score 

Now the eye discovers. 

Ask of Robin, old yet braw, 
How he found so sweet a law 

Thus to cheat time's traces ; 
"Oh !" he'll sing, "1 yet woo Jean ; 
Love can smoothe with touch unseen 

Wrinkles from all faces." 



THE OLD VETERANS STORY. 

THE OLD VETERAN'S STORY. 
Our Kurnal was as darned a dude as ever lived. I 

mean 
Deceitful-like, for when in orniary life, he'd lean 
And lounge 'round lifeless quite, no dignarty or fuss 

had he. 
Oh ! Lord, how pious too he was — a Methordist, 

thought we; 
An' when he took command the fust time, as we lay 

in camp 
'Fore Pittsburg landin' all the boys would wink an' 

kinder scamp 
At him just in a funny way. He never seemed to mind 
The mockin' goin' on at his expense, no ^'boy" was 

fined; 
Although Hank Dickson said one morn he saw his eyes 

snap fire 
All 'round, we didn't care a peg; but he went sorter 

high'r 
In our eyes, you bet, later. Well, friend, when fire be- 
gan, 
Old "Mercy" — as we called him — at the smell of guns 

now ran 
Up here an' there a bit, an' squirmed 'round ; he made 

no noise 
At first but glared; then he'd look like a pray in' kid, 

his eyes 
Raised up an' meek-like. Ah ! but Scotty ! when he 

led with us 



45 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Into the jaws of battle, you should hear that critter 
cuss. 

Say, friend, yo' never in yer born days saw such sur- 
prise 

As circulated 'mong us when old Pollock drest the byes 

In faultless battle line, when we wuz ordered up. We 
saw 

-Him ride along the front before we charged ; his lanky 
jaw 

Wuz kinder iron-set and clenched and in his eyes wuz 
hell; 

We in the furthest rank could hear him sayin' with a 

yell, 

"Dress up, boys, all along the ranks ; look spruce, have 

ye no pride? 
Why, damn it, boys, you wear the blue ; you fight be- 
neath the wide 
And grandest blarsted flag that ever perched upon a 

staff !" 
Oh Lord ! to hear him shout and limber-up like, we 

did laff 
With fair downright surprise. He couldn't rest, he 

seemed stark mad 
To see our lines not spruce-like. Lord! how could 

we there be had 
To care for etikette, just as we stood in front of graves 
An' death. The order "Forward!" now surged on 

our ears ; as raves 
The lashin' sea, a shout 'rose in our ranks and Lord! 

you jus' 

46 



THE OLD VETERAN S STORY. 

Should see that dash for victory, and hear that critter 
cuss. 

Well, neighbor, Pollock — yes, that wuz the Kumal's 

name — turn'd out 
The funniest kind of inconsistent freak 3«ou've heard 

about. 
His pious ways like and his lazy loungin' sort er gait 
Would make yer feel like tellin' him to bundle and trot 

straight 
To home in North Vermont or some sich place — that is 

at furst — 
But, bless yer ! when the first day's fightin' work wuz 

o'er, you durst 
Not look at Pollock disrespectful. All the boys now 

swore 
That he was old Napoleon on earth again once more. 
We followed with that lanky son of Mars through 

many swamps ; 
Through Summer's heat and Winter's snow ; we slept 

with him in camps 
When many of the boys were frozen in the Winter's 

frost. 
And fought behind him, till one day — Ah! neighbor 

then we lost 
That critter. Boss, say 'scuse me 'tis my eyes are only 

riled 
A bit. He fell dead like a soldier at "Five Forks" 

and smiled 
A sorter peaceful, like a baby, as we laid him 'way 



47 



MINOR CHORDS. 

To sleep in kindly Soth'ron earth, although he died 

that day 
With strong- cuss words upon his lips. "God bless 

him boys," spake Jim 
Marrane above his grave, "his lanky, lazy limbs for 

him 
Have no more use, he's happier at rest." Ah ! friend 

I'd give 
The last days of my life to fight it o'er again, to live 
With him an' all the boys now gone, jus' for a single 

fuss 
Led by that critter on to victory, and hear him cuss. 



A MORAL POTENTIALITY. 



A MORAL "POTENTIALITY."* 

In a theatre 'twas. Two brutal men 

With features grim and hard sat up aloft, 

Up where the humbler go and pay respectful 

Tribute to the actor's art, unheeding 

Each the others dress and pose. Two men 

With nerves a-steeled to tender thrills of human 

Sympathy, or simplest emotion. 

Two men with impulses respondent to the 

Sensual and lower cravings, whose 

Moods of love and happiness were only 

Such as are induced by food and drink. 

To them that problem of all problems, life; 

The moral purpose and the future state. 

Were all a blank undreamt of and 

Incomprehensible. 

And as they sat 
Aloft and followed out the moral of the 
Play, depicted in the struggles 'twixt 
The good and bad, 'twixt vice and virtue, and 
Enthused did hope to see the woman of the 
Piece (symbolical of virtue and the 
Good) defenceless, weak, come off the victor; 
And at that moment where the hero of the 
Play did strike the villain down and rescue 
Virtue — innocence — from deviltry 



•Publifhed in The Theatre. 

49 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Personified, the god-like spirit, dormant 
Long within their breasts was re-enkindled, 
And they triumphed in the triumph of the 
Truth, and thus they worshipped at the 
Altar of true religion in spirit ; 
Even while they stamped, and shouted out 
Approval of the Arts which realized 
That scene and play. 

As behind the footlights 
Fell the curtain, those two men did turn 
Away ; for once in years emotional 
And humanized. The moral sidelights of 
That drama had been vividly impressed 
Upon their minds and hearts, had given to their 
Thoughts and aspirations spiritual color. 
And with these new and strange emotions, came 
The mem'ry of long-forgotten lessons 
Taught by lips long stilled in sleep of death. 
As even while they felt upon their cheeks 
The flush of shame they spiritualized 
Did face that tribunal of conscience — God — 
With fervid, fervent words of penitence, 
And vowed to strive and rise above the base, 
To raise the spirit of the pure — ^the God — 
That burns within the breast of living man 
And womanlvind, and struggles ever with 
The devilish and vile. 

But what if those 

50 



A MORAL POTENTIALITY. 

Two men did fall again? What matters it 

They for once did feel that in this world 

Where at this time 'tis fashion to decry, 

To sneer at immortality, there yet are 

Nobler purposes and ends, than selfish 

Striving after things material, 

At such a cost as loss of moral honor. 

For within each human breast there is 

A mystic "something" — name it faculty 

Or conscience, as you choose — that teaches good 

From bad, and vice from its opposed "pole;" 

Even as we feel, when conquering 

The baser of ourselves, a lofty sense 

Of pleasedness, so pure in quality 

And so divine, as if it reached av/ay 

Afar beyond our consciences, to Heaven, 

To the infinite. 

Thus it is shown 
That in the life of man, the purpose is 
Defined and written by a power beyond 
Our ken, as plain as in philosophy 
Of tides and moon and stars ; or, further still, 
That far above the inconsistencies 
Of creeds political, or polemical, 
Is this star-truth seen, refulgent through 
The day, the seasons, and all times — 
The acm.e, root of all philosophy. 

But look ye, learn from this allegory ' 

51 



MINOR CHORDS. 

That the actor is a Priest of nature 

And of truth, for he but tries to show 

The life, its weaknesses, and purpose 

By a light approaching fact almost, 

As even it is ever the first effort 

Of the playwright to depict the triumph 

Of the good, obedient to that instinct 

Universal, and the one redeeming 

Trait bestowed upon humanity. 

And know that the Theatre is a Church 

Where men and women learn to worship truth 

In simile, and equally to scorn 

What's base or vile. But first discriminate 

Between true Art and that which is set up 

By vicious and uncultured minds as such. 

For we bespeak and laud but that which tends 

To elevate the mind and spiritual 

Sensibilities, and thus we mark 

The difference. So do not judge the temples 

Reared to histrionic Art to be 

But haunts of sin and vice, 

Because perhaps there are some places named 

Theatres to be found, wherein the "stage" 

Is desecrated, lowered, to suit the tastes 

And concepts of the vulgar crowd, and so 

Be profitable in commercial sense. 

But do not thus misjudge the Actor's art, 

And know it as a moral pov/er for good. 

And the theatre as a schoolhouse and a 

Church combined. 



52 



A LETTER FROM SWATE TIPPERARY. 

A LETTER FROM SWATE TIPPE- 
RARY. 
''Dear Hugh ; 

Och! I thought all the poets that sang iv the joys 
Sure of love's swate romancin', and ticklish sighs. 

Were as mad as March hares, 

Till last week, unawares, 
I got caught by the strings av me heart by a charmer, 
She is named Mona Clare. I declare she's a warmer 

That I want for me sowl 

Very bad. Oh, don't howl 
Wid the laughin 's I'll tell me quare tale. It was there 
In the town of Rossmore at the "gooseberry fair"* 

In swate June that I met 

Mona fair, with her jet 
Sparklin' eyes an' her charms so perfect complately 
Now I'm all broken up ; for she's captured me nately, 

An' I cannot find rest. 

With the pain in me chest. 

"She was dancin' an iligant lilt in a reel 

Wid bould Micky McGown, whin I noticed her heel, 

Thin her dainty young foot 

On the floor. Ye can put 
Me all down just for sayin' that never such dancin' 
Was seen in Rich Kearney's front room. Oh the pran- 
cin' 

Was simply divine; 

■•Borrowed from a poetic old Celtic custom peculiar to parts of the South of 
Ireland to commemorate the ripeness of that fruit and the presence of 
Summer. 



53 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Sure you wouldn't moind dyin' 
Beforehand, to come over in spirit to gaze 
At me thin, as I met her black eyes. There's a haze 

'Round me heart since that day. 

'Twas the first time the gray 
Av me peepers fell on her before in this wurld. 
Thin I danced out betwixt her a bit, but she curled 

Me all up. Just thin 'Wait !' 

Cried the piper, T'm bate.' 

"Faith, she captured the hearts av the boys all around 
As she knocked out the piper an' me, an' the sound 

She drew out iv the floor 

Wid the boots that she wore, 
An' the iligant batt'rin', an' treblin', an' capers 
She cut, to McCloud's concert reel, would drive vapors, 

Faith, away from th' moon. 

Troth an' Piper McCune 
Screamed so high wid delight as the swate rat-a-tat 
Of her feet kept his music agog, that he sat 

On his only silk tile 

Unbeknown all the while. 
Oh but swatest of all that the piper sure missed — 
For he's blind as a fiddle — ^was the beauty that kissed 

In a halo her face. 

As she danced like a grace. 

"When the dancin' was done I was faint in me sow! 

— Tho' not lackin' cheek — as I brought her a bowl 
Of swate gooseberry wine 
From the tap-room, 'twas cryin'. 



54 



A LETTER FROM SWATE TIPPERARY. 

Faith, I almost felt loike, that is wid a quare feelin', 
When she drank from me hand and I felt just like 
kneelin' 

To worship her thin, 

And she thanked me agin 
In a voice filled wid beautiful brogue, wid no frills 
Loike yer English an' Yankee colleens, thotigh thim 
kills 

Loads of hearts, I'll be bound. 

Thin I tried to stale 'round 
To git in a nate spache, when her father drew near 
An' he beckoned her out. Och ! she never come there 

Any more. Now my slape 

Is all gone wid her shape. 

"Yet I'll wait, for begor there was hope in the glance 

Iv her eye. Now, an' as Uncle Phil did just chance 

For to die, where's the harm 

When he's left me his farm. 
***** 

"R S. 

Sure an' now I may add to the letter I sent — 

Tho' it niver was mailed — that wid joy I am rent 

Near in two, for Miss Clare 

Will be soon named O'Hare. 



MINOR CHORDS. 



ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND. 

"An Honest Man 's the Noblest Work of God." 

God, when He bore thy soul far hence 

From our dim ways of care and strife, 
To give thee joy and recompense 

For living nobly in this life, 
In His great wisdom knowing best, 

He only brought thy spirit peace; 
Then why should tears disturb thy rest, 

Since joy came with the soul's release? 

Ah ! yet when those who loved thy face 

Gazed on it lying white and cold — 
That face wherein the eye could trace 

Thy gen'rous nature, true as gold; 
The face of gentle parent, friend ; 

The face of husband, faithful, true; 
When mourning thee, death-clasped and thinned, 

How could they check the tears grief drew ? 

Bequeathing those who bear thy name — 

Devoted wife and children fond — 
The record of a life whose fame 

Is written in God's Book beyond, 
Thou wert God's noblest type of man. 

With honest Irish heart, and smile 
Like those soft skies which Erin span, 

Disdaining trickery or wile. 



56 



THE POET S MISSION. 

Ah ! how can souls wrapt up in thine 

Control the sorrow which bemoans 
Thy absence from the household shrine — 

The place the honored father owns; 
Yet Faith sends light in such dark hours, 

To bid us hope, and trust, and wait 
Till God opes up with mystic powers 

The treasures past His Golden Gate. 

Farewell! dear friend, yet not farewell, 

For in God's plans true justice reigns; 
Thus, as thou lived on earth so well. 

Reward has come to ease thy pains ; 
And in the newer life He sends 

To parted souls through mystery 
Then loving children, wife, and friends 

Shall join thee for eternity. 

THE POET'S MISSION. 

Pray, is the poet great, his mission high. 
Who aims but to display an artist's skill ; 
Who decks a trivial thought v/itli art, until. 
Like spurious gems which glitter to the eye. 
It seems profound and soaring to the sky ; 
Who sings affected verse our pride to fill 
Unmindful of a purpose higher still? 
Are poems writ so that the proud may buy. 



57 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Framed as mere tributes to high life and pride 
By supreme law above the verse that brings 
The heart to linger where great Truths abide? 
Oh no ! The poet best is he who sings, 
Although in humble text, a song to guide 
Humanity to higher paths and things. 

THE UNSPEAKABLE. 

If we could sing or paint those things which rise 
Up to our inner sight in moments odd. 

When looking far within with mystic eyes 

We see beyond the beaten paths here trod — 

Far into other spheres — we'd paint such art 

And verse as never moved the human heart. 

If we could fashion those emotions strange, 
Unspeakable and vast which come to life 

In moods within the soul's mysterious range 
To bear the spirit from the ways of strife 

And shape them in the mold of tone or phrase, 

Then would the wide world harken in amaze. 

Ah ! all we know through signs, by art, or speech 

Expressive of th' immortal light in Man 
Without our own domain of sense, but reach 

A narrow range of chords judged by the span 
Of strange emotions latent in our breast — 
O, surely, they can somewhere be expressed? 



58 



HEROES OF THE HEART. 

HEROES OF THE HEART. 

Who'll be your hero now, 

Old mother with the brow 
Of care crowned o'er with silvery silken hair? 

He that you loved so long, 

So faithfully, so strong, 
Smiled in your dear old face last week for e'er. 

He was your hero bold, 

Old mother, in the gold 
And gladsome wooing days of years agone; 

Then love-light filled your breast, 

Then seemed your lover best 
Of all the lovers living Earth upon. 

And in the wedded years 

Where pure love reigned — ere tears 
Brought furrows to your once fresh dimpled cheek,- 

When walked John by your side, 

You ever v/ere his bride ; 
He saw no change in that sweet face now meek. 

Young Ned your hero too. 
Who brought those years a new 

And sacred joy from out love's mystery — 
He marched away to glory, — 
'Tis but a simple story; 

He died beneath the flag in sixty-three. 

Now once fond hearts are missed 
And lips that loving kissed 



59 



MINOR CHORDS. 

To catch love's purer speech, have passed to dust; 
Yet in the heart's recesses, 
Where Hope divine caresses 

All wounded souls, abides a holy trust. 

For they're your heroes yet; 

You know they've surely met 
Above the vault of death where many meet. 

Gray-haired loving mother, 

Trust! for Faith has other 
And purer crowns to lay down at your feet. 

"TRUTH IS OMNIPOTENT." 

"Truth is omnipotent and shall prevail ;" 

Vast words, grand words, which bear an atmosphere 
Reflected from eternity. No air 
Of classic affectation may assail 
The intellect therein : no well spun tale 

Or metaphor is needed to give glare 

And subtle value to this text. Shakespeare, 
Whose mystic vision lofty heights did scale, 
Ne'er uttered phrase as infinite as that 

'Mid all his lines impressed with genius new 
And rare — ^yet often wand'ring from Truth's paths — 

These words, though free from art's rare charm and 
few, 
Shall live when Shakespeare's name no meaning hath ,* 

They link us to the stars from where we grew. 



60 



LESTER VVALLACK. 



LESTER WALLACK.* 

Lower the lights, hushed be the throng, attune 

The music's tones to themes of sympathy 

And gentle grief — for past away is he, 

The Stage's Wallack, — past, alas! too soon 

For art's beneficence. Gone with the boon 

Of gen'rous love and priceless kindly words 

From friend and foe alike, to make a June 

Of smiling flowers and peace, and singing birds 

Within his ebbing soul. For, passing hence, 

'Twere sweet to know that tender, earnest words 

Of prayer sad hearts were whispering, intense 

With grave solicitude ; to feel the dense 

And solemn mystery of death draw near 

With loving voices by, bespeaking hope 

And cheer. But of him be it written here 

That well he played his part in life. The scope 

Of eulogy is concentrated there 

Within that simple phrase. Could heaven hope 

For more from mortal here below, 'mid strife 

Of earthly inconsistencies and woes ? 



We do not know, but mourn a single life 
Gone out upon the mystic tide, which flows 
Unto God's kingdom of infinities. 



* Published in The Theatre. 

6t 



MINOR CHORDS. 



THE STORM AND THE DAY. 

The boding Storm grew angry with the smiling day 
And landward swooped in furious rage, all black 
with haze — 

So black that far into the heavens sank away 
The Sun, as if affrighted by the Storm's dread gaze. 

And Day, deserted by the cheering smiles the Sun 
Had lavished in its wiles, felt fear and great unrest ; 

But getting strength anew from out its fears — did run ! 
And flee across the Earth into the litten West. 

Pursuing, — following up the chase the Storm flew, 
And would have seized the prize had not the Earth 
awoke 
To pity, and to save the hunted Day it threw 

Its darkened side against the vengeful tempest's 
stroke. 

'Twas thus the timid Day was saved behind the Earth, 
And beamed with fervid g-race again upon the slopes 

Of the Antipodes, as followed on, alert 

With glorious speed, the Sun alight with lover's 
hopes. 

The baffled Storm, enraged at the escape of Day, 
Now wrestled with the Night in blindest wildest 
mirth 



THE STORM AND THE DAY. 

Of deviltry; coquetted with the Ocean's way 

Of calm, and toyed with Nature's works as if to 
flirt. 

Upon the Ocean's bosom, placid short before. 

The ships did ride the foam-flecked waves with 
corded mast 

And quiv'ring spars, to drift and mingle with the soar 
Of clashing seas, and helplessly were flung and cast. 

And Nature's woods and valleys moaned in weirdsome 

waves 

Of sighing sound as if in pain, while mothers scared 

By anxious fears, strained to their bosoms little babes 

Protectingly, and shudd'ring men but listened — 

stared. 

The monster Storm grew tired soon, and breathing 
hard 
In fitful gasps dissolved itself to rest and quiet; 
And mountain slopes and rolling meadowlands were 
marred 
With darkness, for the Day had carried off all light. 

From hiding — nestling — in the baylets of the dells 
And zephyr hermitages of the lakes — came forth 

The gentler wind to usher joy, and seaward tells 
The storm-tossed sailor of fav'ring gales and port. 

And good old Father Time informs the absent Day, 

63 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Which rising eastways on the edge of Earth, so 
peeps 
With curious gaze, clad in a misty sheen of gray 
To know if all is calm, and if the Storm sleeps. 

So reassured with joyful speed it bids its mate 

The Sun to come, and soon the Earth all o'er is 
bright, 

And Nature beams again in color tints, elate ; 

On Ocean white wings skim, and everywhere is light. 



THE PRICE OF GENIUS. 



THE PRICE OF GENIUS. 

Yes, to the dreamers — pale with pain of bearing to 
the world new thought — 

Yes, to these dreamers hollow-eyed and worn, O man t 
you owe what brought 

The world liberty, — what struck the scales from off 
your faded sig^ht 

To show the road to broader, richer heights of pur- 
pose and of right. 

Yes, to the fearless thinkers of the pen who nobly faced 

the stake, — 
Yes, to those men of shape like me, with iron wills 

that never quake 
Or swerve, O man ! you owe releasement from all' 

bondage of the mind; 
They forged the sword which cut your chains, despite 

the rage of tyrant-kind. 

Yes, to those men of dauntless speech who preached 
the tale of newer truth, 

Yes, to those men with grim-set brows and face, O 
Man ! you owe the youth 

Which springs with freedom's sanctity. They strug- 
gled, fought, and died for you. 

Yet, not in vain, for from their souls the tree of human 
progress grew. 



65 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Yes, to those living men of thought and speech grand 
in their pallid gioom, — 

Yes, to those noble men so fondly treasured in tra- 
dition's womb — 

Wrought in the sculptured stone, writ in the scholar's 
tome, or poet's lay 

Of praise — we owe the light and strength which helps 
us on our upward way. 

UNCHANGEABLENESS. 

Oh ! think you not that life shall cease 
When we shall pine and die. 
I Your book may end, e'en as our lease 

I Of life — we know not why ! 

\ The scroll we humans write will pass, 

The parchments fade and rot, 
Our fairest temples sink to grass 
In time and be forgot. 

i And all the inspirations wrought 

l^r By subtle art and hand 

On nature's face must die; nor thought 
Nor prayer can bid them stand. 

■ All things that mortal workers give 

Must change to mould and clay ; 
But life enduring e'er will live 
While man's works fade away. 



66 



FRANZ LISZT. 



FRANZ LISZT. ^ 



Great spiritualist of art who moved the keys 

T' invoke with subtle touch sweet mysteries, 

From out the world of sound, grave reverence 

Is yours by due; not for whatever dense 

And saddening cares your music helps to send 

Out of our lives, nor for your gifts. We bend, 

O Liszt ! our heads in memory of you. 

And ask not even what you were — the few 

Are only perfect; neither can it be 

Of aught avail to seek the mystery, 

Which wrapt its shadows round and near, and gave 

You birth ; nor do we wish to haunt your grave. 

We only mirror in your living name 

And vast conceptiveness, that mystic flame 

Which in dark hours of doubt lights up the path 

Athwart infinity and man. 'Tis that 

Strange light relit in you, O Liszt ! which thus 

Invokes our pasan of reverence ; with us 

Who love your art you ever have a niche 

Within the Pantheon of our hearts ; your speech 

Of tones we treasure too. Betimes you rise 

From out the depths, for genius never dies.**^ 



* Published in the American Musician. 

**The individuality of true genius lives forever incarnated in the works 
which it has helped to create. In considering the quality of this subtile 
essence, all thoughts as to the medium's personal character have to be dis- 
connected, and separately estimated. — Mazzini. 



67 



MINORCHORDS. 

"LOVE'S OLD, OLD TALE." 

^'Love's old, old tale" they say; yet, is Love old? 

Has God's own heart the attribute of age? 
Are stars and universe writ in Man's cold 

And formal book of time, upon its page? 
Were souls begotten from the recent years 
Or do they breathe the life breath of the spheres? 

■"Love's old, old tale" men sometimes say in jest; 

Yet, is Love old ? Are murm'ring sea waves young ? 
Or voices waking longings in Man's breast, 

Or mystic tone-strings in the storm-clouds hung 
To yield the thunder's song while heaven plays. 
New phases of the world's life or ways? 

They write "Love's old, old tale" in poet's guise 
While paying tribute to its soul and birth ; 

Yet, is that Light which Love brings to all eyes 
When spirits meet, a fleeting flame of earth? 

Pray, can you trace its source or being scan 

By processes or things begot by man? 

*'Love's old, old tale" — and yet, these words are just 

And often uttered in sincerest praise; 
But oh ! how feeble language is to trust 

For measuring those things, which have no days ! 
Ah ! only when you reach th' Eternal light 
Can you give Love the value words can't write. 



63 



MATT CAREW S PROPOSAL. 



MATT CAREW'S PROPOSAL. 

Faith! my Yankee colleen there's no doubting your 

charms, 
Though I can't help confessing my Irish heart warms 

To the colleens from over the sea, 
Ah ! then sure, darling, love is a soaring sinsation. 
That in truth makes the world seem as only one nation ; 

Now don't laugh, faith ! it ain't flattery. 

And when first in New Hampshire I saw your sweet 

self. 
Tripping past, down a green country lane, like an elf 

Clad in Tipp'rary beauty galore, 
Though you're Yankee all o'er, faith ! I felt my heart 

talk 
In a queer silent tongue, and I blushed like a gawk 
As I caught the bright light your eyes wore. 

Ah ! my fair Yankee queen sure you're fit for a throne ; 
Though your name wasn't christened Victoria, I own 

That won't bother a Kerry gossoon ; 
After all 'tis a very good job that them queens 
Cannot buy all the things God's equality means 

For the daughters of mankind, aroon. 

And to talk like the scholars do, isn't it queer 
That the sweet tongue of love that we, darling, speak 
here 



69 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Lives for all like the light of the sun ? 
And no quarrels of congresses, nations, or Kings 
Can avail 'gainst the curious sensation that wings 

Its bright way from Dan Cupid's stringed gun. 

But then, Mabel, machree, — (what an iligant name !) — 
Since you're partial to me — now, don't laugh at that 
same, 

Ahem ! faith, can't I tell by your eye ? — 
Will you mind if I whisper a secret so sweet 
That 'tis jealous I am of the ground 'neath your feet — 

Will you ? — sure 'tis no use fighting shy. 

Though the Carews of Kerry for courting were 

famed — 
Please don't look so coquettish — my heart was near 
lamed 

Till I met you ; I swear by my troth ! 
But see now we've been talking a half-hour or o'er; 
Whist! a rap! murther ! joy! Then you love me? 
Great Moore! 

What two sweet tasting lips you have got !" 



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM. 



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 

We watched — my friend and I — the summer sun 
Grow old and die behind the lake, — flooding 
All its paths with a new and varied hue 
Too delicate and mystical to catch 
From inorganic earth and duplicate 
By painter's art. 

And sitting there, — down where 
The lawn sloped to the fastly dark'ning stretch 
Of water, which spread before our sight till 
It seemed to sink and disappear into 
The sky of dawning night, — we talked in quiet 
Voices of many quaint and eerie things, 
As if inspired by impulse caught up from 
The shadows — weirdly stealing on us with 
The time and place. 

And said my friend, when we 
Had paused in silent reverie a while, 
"Just look you on that bed of summer flowers 
Beside the pathway yonder. What a change 
From a while ago, when they did gladden 
Nature with their lovely hues ! See now their 
Colors ; tints have followed onward with the 
Sun and light, and sped to other worlds — 
Perhaps. Who knows? For when the poet sings. 
In simile of flow'rs and plants as only 
Borrowing their varied tints from out the 



71 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Summer sky, pray may it not be but so ? 
For poets gaze with a vision — subtle, 
All-seeing, — afar beyond mere science, 
Into the very womb of earth." 

And I 
Did listen silent thinking out this queer 
Conceit, when from the lake shore crept 
A boat, all lighted up with spectral beams 
And color lights, and dimly we could trace 
Within the little ship happy careless 
Mortals ; pilgrims too from out the cities' 
Strife and din, e'en thus be-stealing 
Out to breathe with nature on the lonely 
Lake, And presently new forms enwrapt in 
Artificial lights slid out from where the 
Forest trees threw buried shadows on the 
Water's breast, and laden with magicians 
Skilled in acoustic art — for to our ears 
The sounds of music came deliciously 
Yet, mysteriously, — co-mingling with 
The evening shadowtide, and wakening chords 
Coincident within our souls. 

Soon — as 
We lingered there entranced, enwrapt up in 
Our aimless talk, and yet enthused with all 
The dimful spirit-ecstacy allied 
To worship of the beaut'ful in nature, — 
Which is but materialized in Music, 



72 



A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. 

Poesy, and the color arts, — a young moon 

Hied to earth and creeping shyly from a 

Veil of clouds, lit up the lake, the landscape 

And the woodland glades with soft and lustrous 

Holy light, reflected from the parent 

Orb of day, now shedding color dew far 

'Pon the antipodean continent 

And turning toward the flower beds, — my 

Student friend and I, — we saw that subtle 

Color life had come again into the 

Blossomed plants : yet not the hues and tints of 

Day but moon-tints potent with symphonies 

Of color mystery, and we let out 

Our hearts in reverence, and worshiped at 

The mystic source of nature's mysteries. 

In silence with ourselves. 

The night waxed la»t;e 
And the stars shone out in faithful contrast 
To the maiden orb of night as if they 
Gleamed but by gracious condescension of 
Their Queen, and were in fear lest they might but 
Pollute the dominant hues shed from and 
Enfolded 'round the orb of night by the 
Old sun himself. And anon the pleasure 
Barques we hear returning homeward to the 
Shore, as silv'ry voices chant their tend'rest 
Songs of love, and the occult emotions 
Thrill us in a subtle and mysterious 
Manner born of the place and time. 



73 



MINORCHORDS. 

For it was past the midnight time ; strange hours' 
When lovers' songs seem but misplaced, yet tinged 
With curious pathos of sincerity. 
And it was now that all one half the world 
Slept, when little children slumbered in each 
Other's arms; when tired men had wearied 
Of the strife, and laid their limbs and outworn 
Faculties to rest, releasing for a 
Brief interval, the spirit force, — the will. 
The "ego" — which freed from bondage — duty — 
Upward, onward, flies unerringly to 
Its source, the Supreme Source, from whence come 
Music's S5miphonies ; comes love ; come color 
Harmonies, and all those sweet and holy 
Concepts of a better life, and higher 
State; of angels, flowers, peace, and friendship- 
Incarnated with the purest spirit 
Life. 

And silence soon intensely wrapt the 
Placid lake, the forest trees whose shadows 
Answered back against the moon, the woodland 
Slopes, and glades, and all around ; and now the 
Queen of light shone brightly with new courage 
Seeming fearful of the world's noise all 
Through the early night. 

And we two heeding 
Our tired spirit's call for rest — recess — 
Did turn homeward, with new impulses 



74 



THE OLD PIANO. 

And thoughts impressed into the storehouse of 
The mind, and chastened — spirituaHzed, 
By communion with nature's God, 
Wiser of a secret, too, that teaches 
Where true happiness and sweet peace abide. 

THE OLD PIANO. 

The old piano's strings long years in vain 
Dumb restfulness, and songless all, have lain — 

Dull 'neath the touch of rust and time. 
To-day a hand has tuned those strings anew, 
With much solicitude, for long the dew 

Of grim decay had dimmed their rhyme. 

New hands glide o'er the yellowed keys along. 
And hammers dust-bound in their centers long. 

Leap up in joy to kiss the strings; 
A wail of tone sobs forth, antique, yet sweet; 
The past seems living here once more — to greet 

The few friends left — on mystic wings. 

And what a tender, hallowed joy seems waked 
Within its aged wood-heart long opaqued 

And shut out from the light it wears. 
Till fancy, linking hands with that sad tune 
The artist plays, brings up a long-lost June 

Of bliss gone with the silent years. 



75 



MINOR CHORDS. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF STRIFE.* 

Friend, "higher np" — that is a motto true ; 

Yes, higher up, and higher yet — aye more 
Attune life's actions to these phrases few, 

And struggling, sometime you will sight a shore 
Which skirts a mystic land that lies us near — 
A land of harvest days and harvest cheer. 

Yes, "higher up," and never cease to strive 

Though ways be weary and the landscape dim; 

Though falt'ring hearts may somewhile fail to drive 
The engine of the muscles, nerves and limb; 

Though passion's voice and sin grow strong within 

To cast the spirit down, yet strive — you'll win. 

Up, higher yet ! Each triumph of the will 

From time to time exalts the abstract soul 

If what we seek within life's weary mill 

Is born of spirit truth, and if the goal 

And purpose of our reason's fight be pure 

And consecrate to things that must endure. 

Again higher still ; although the ways beyond 

Seem not now pregnant with a recompense 

God pays his debts in gen'rous drafts in hand 

And years are as but moments in his sense. 

For with each triumph gained fresh strength is grown. 

That is God's spirit law ; the debt he'll own. 

*Published in The Catholic World. 

75 



CONSOLATION. 



CONSOLATION. 



Oh ! teach me a prayer ; a prayer not selfish, 

Only something broad in thought and wish; 

A prayer not for the few who think with me 

But breathing hope for all humanity. 

And thus not for our daily bread I'd ask — 

Alone these words are hidden in the mask, 

Sometimes, of bigotry. My prayer would fain 

Be eloquent in simpleness ; yet gain 

Its glory from a boundless creed, as broad 

In love for all our brothers here as God 

Is infinite and just. 'Twould be a prayer 

Symbolical of nature's truths, and fair 

With hope for man and womankind, as flow'rs 

That spring like magic from sweet April show'rs 

And sun, which lend to barren earth their spell — 

For nature's laws are just. And e'en I'd dwell 

Within my inmost heart for power to cry 

Unto the timid ear of man, — to dry 

His sad and scalding tears, and fill the world 

With hope — Look up ! Have faith ! Though often 

hurled 
Down to despair. Oh ! cease your idle fears, 
Doubt not God's compensating Hand that bears 
The verdure to the naked Winter trees. 
That clothes the bushes with fair flowers. Hark ! bees 
And birds are coming on its magic tide; 
The glorious Summer soon shall here abide. 



77 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Thus, compensation lives within our sight. 
The loving faces banished in the night 
Of years gone by — those voices now no more — 
Were our affinities. That force which bore 
The flowers and summer joys to earth, shall give 
Us back those joys, thank God! Thus let us live! 



THE NEW SPRING. 



THE NEW SPRING.* 

Lo, Spring is in the air ! The olden sun 

Is rising in th' infinity of space 

To shed new summer rays ; our dearth has won 

His sympathy; for he has seen the face. 

The bleakness of our world side, — the dun 

And loneliness, — and conscience has begun 

To prickle in his heart. So he will hie 

Full soon to bear those mystic tints — yet none 

Of dark — unto the landscape's breast, and joy 

Will spread o'er nature everywhere. But by 

A law supreme in nature's mystery. 

Our summer flowers, their em'rald hues, the coy 

And fragile forest joys are loaned us, be 

It not forgot, and in due time shall flee 

Again, back to the counter-side of earth 

From whence the sun now bears them stealthily; 

And when within his heart he brings the mirth, 

The gladness of new light, when our desert 

Of budding spring has set in sunshine's glow 

O'er earth around, let us be-learn a pert 

Yet subtle truth, that as the seasons go 

And change to stern opposites of light — 

Of light and dark; of cold and heat — yet so 

It 's truly ever with the joy and woe. 

The contrasts of our lives ; for sure as night 



•Published in the Theatre. 

79 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Has day, and surely as the winter's blight 

Swift flies before the spring, there yet is balm 

For wounded hearts somewhere; so sorrow's fright 

And wint'ry sighs of care, before the palm 

And flow'rs of that new spring shall go, and calm 

Shall reign, and life be as a holy psalm. 

WORLD-WORN HEARTS. 

O world-worn hearts, awearied, sore from toil, 
Fain would you falter in this path e'en while 
The heaven peaks just dawn on the sight — above, 
Fain would you faint and sink the faith and love 
Of patient, trusting souls into despair — 
That, yawning, circles 'round us everywhere. 

O world-worn hearts, e'er struggling bravely on — 
E'er struggling with a heavy load upon 
A track as compassless as fate — a course 
As measureless as God — led by one source — 
One supreme source of light — which shines afar, 
A beacon to tired eyes — a mystic star. 

O world-worn hearts, thus labor on and up — 
Up toward that shining star. Th' elysian cup 
Of joy is there. With instinct born of truth 
You see it is the soul that of all those mute. 
Unspeakable, divine desires we feel. 
That whisper "Peace — peace and eternal weal !" 



80 



THESOULOFTRUTH, 

THE SOUL OFTRUTH. 

Think not, in jagged ruts of narrow creeds, 

Be ever true, unto 

Your conscience — God — all you 
Who love the freedom of the soul — its needs. 

Think not, to imitate, as others would 
But use the reas'ning spark 
That glimmers in the dark 
Of man's instinctive will, to light the good. 

Think not — as narrow doubters, sneerers — say, 

And harden not the heart 

By "affectation's art" 
To inspirations Heaven sends alway. 

Think not as science sometimes bids you think 

Nor figure out the soul — 

The mystery — the goal. 
Its destiny, in "symbols" wrought by ink. 

Think not nor dogimatize as others do. 

About the mystic "link," 

Which bids our spirit think. 
And joins us to the Whence from v/hera we grew. 

ENVOY. 

And you who've climbed the peaks and roundward 
gaze 



8i 



MINOR CHORDS. 



With vision keen, enfortified, by force 
Of pure philosophy, — Oh, cast no haze 

Of empty doubts or fears on man's drear course. 
Nor take from him the holy faith he prays. 



GONE AND DEAD. 

Gone! 

And dead, they say. It's only home 
A chafing spirit 's fled; as he 
Long pining in a prison dome 
Or cell, looks back with ecstasy 
Upon once captive walls, anon 
Bethinking freedom's real'ty 
He homeward hastens quickly on. 

Dead ! 

And cold they say. It 's only clay 
They know and speak about; for he 
Who tenanted that lifeless ray 
Of nature's art, and brilliancy 
Of subtle beauty light, o'er shed 
Those features, stilled yet beautified, — 
Has only been released and fled. 



: ANINVOCATION. . 

AN INVOCATION. 

I. 

Give Hope a flower — the fairest flower the garden 
grows or gleans 

From Summer's breath, at golden noon when sun- 
light's life-blood sheens, 

For it brought us gold, it brought us peace, it brought 
us Springtime's glow, 

When hearts spoke quick to dreadful fears — grew faint 
with unseen woe. 

II. 

Give Love a kiss — a sacred kiss as mothers give their 

young ; 
Or faithful hearts bestow in sweet salute, that language 

sung 
And mirrored by the painter's hand, the poet's pen, 

it gave 
Our lives a charm that banished dark despair; Love 

knows no grave. 

III. 
Give Charity a prayer — the sweetest, noblest prayer 

you've learned 
Which speaks in deeds — not empty creeds that human 

hopes have spurned 
And gibbered at the cry to heav'n that rent the stricken 

soul, 
But the broken and contrite heart Thy Truth gives 

peace, makes whole. 



83 



MINOR CHORDS. 
IV. 

And yet give Faith a hymn — a hymn sincere, and 

strongly full 
Of ardent gratitude — the blessed Faith so beautiful 
To earnest, honest minds — 'tis only Faith in God and 

Truth 
That gives to life its blood — our hope in man, eternal 

youth. 



MONEY. 



MONEY. 



"You pretty child," I gently said, "your pennies jingle 

gay, 

Pray, what does money mean to you; what does it 
bring, now say?" 
"Oh ! money, sir," the child cried pert, 
"Buys all the precious things on earth; 
For money father works and toils, and mother with 

it brings 
All good things home. Oh ! money, sir, is what makes 
crowns and kings." 

"You, maiden with the red blush fair upon your cheek 

of youth. 
Pray what does money mean?" I said, "you seem so 
full of truth." 
"Oh! money, sir," the maiden said, 
"Buys love and light, buys joy and bread, 
Buys everything upon this earth, in palace, home, or 

hail- 
Where love of truth is dead or dimmed, without truth 
we must fall." 

"You, mother gray with honored age, pray what doea 

money mean? 
Can it turn back the wheel of Time, or win back 
beauty's sheen?" 
"My son," she said, "it buys for me 



85 



MINOR CHORDS. 

Sweet emblems of life's mystery ; 
It brings me music from God's fount, sweet flowers 

and song of birds, 
All tokens of th' immortal life without our range of 

words." 

"For you, O father, bent and stooped, pray what can 

man's gold do? 
How can it bear young fresh life to your shrunken 

limbs anew?" 
"My son," he said, "it buys my heart 
The essence of kind words and art. 
And e'en it buys my children's love, the reading of 

God's text, 
A thousand joys; aye, more, it lights my road up to 

the next." 

Then paused I near a prison cell, and spoke I to the 
guest : 

"Pray, brother, what does money mean to you cast 
down, opprest? 
You live in chains and gloom." He spoke 
In bitter curses : "Money broke 

My mother's heart, it brought my soul a raging pas- 
sion flood. 

It stole my honor — worse, O God ! it spilled my broth- 
er's blood." 



FUTURITY. 

FUTURITY. 
Not for ourselves alone we fear the dark 
Strange dream of death. Not for ourselves we fear 
That time when earthly signs a passing mark 
The soul's new spring, ere our new eyes shall peer 
Upon strange scenes and things. We do not dread 
The coming life — ^the mystic brighter light — 
But here below our souls and loves are fed 
And nurtured — warmed by kindred souls; our fight 
With earthly cares made easier still by kind 
And patient friends. So when the parting's nigh 
Our thoughts are not of selfdom, but behind 
We glance into the memories past, and sigh 
Because we do not know if, in the future life 
Before us set, we all shall meet and live 
Forever side by side, in new worlds rife 
With all that 's good and true. For as we give 
Those latent dreams of new futurity, 
The sunshine of its hopes and sorrows gloom 
Commingled to the pure maturity 
Of friendship's love — ^to those dear hearts to whom 
We're joined by holiest ties. So 'tis the shroud. 
The passing hence away, the darkened room. 
The sorrowing ones, we fear, and not the proud 
And transient sleep of death, nor yet the tomb. 

87 



MINOR CHORDS. 

"SLIMMY" THOMPSON'S SISTER 

SUE. 
"Say, boys, who would you do the most for? 

— if it come to choice, d'ye mind?" 
Asked Tommy Graves, one evening, of the boys 

who crowded round behind 
The big ice-truck of jolly Bob McCann 

on East Broadway, near Pike, 
Back in the early days of "fifty-nine." 

"Why, what a question!" Ike 
McComb did cry, and all the crowd did laugh 

at Tom. "Well, I, d'ye see," 
Said Sam Duval, "to drop all jokin'— 

I would do de most for she, 
Me mudder, to begin." "And you," asked Graves, 

just in a casual way 
Of "Slimmy" Thompson. "Oh, don't bother, Tom," 

said he, "you're off; but say. 
Just have you got a chew?" Ned Skelly 

said, "Well, fellers, I would do 
The most for" — here he laughed aloud — 

"for Slimmy Thompson's Sister Sue." 
***** 

Two years passed over since that summer's 

eve ; the youths down on that street 

Had many grown to men, and gone away 
to fight, or die, and neat 

Sue Thompson's brother "Slim" had buckled up 
and gone 'way with the rest, 



SLIMMY THOMPSONS SISTER SUE. 

And all the girls mourned. Ned Skelly, too, 
had joined the boys who drest 

In blue, one winter's day. His heart was filled 
with mingled tears, and joy. 

For he was parting from some one he loved, 
yet grief he stifled dry. 

The day for marching came, and as the regi- 
ment passed old Broadway through, 

A sobbing girl wept out for Ned — 

'twas Slimmy Thompson's Sister Sue. 

And later in the years one day 

there was p, fight on Fair Oaks' ground, 
A gory fight, for those that fought 

on either side were grit, and bound — 
If bravery and zeal could do it — 

to be best, and in the fight 
Where'er the fighting maddest was, 

the banner ever up in sight 
Was carried by the dauntless 6ist, all "boys" 

from New York State, 
With hearts as staunch as ever brave 

Virginians faced in battle's hate; 
A Union soldier with familiar face 

fell in the battle's breath, 
And in his hand he clutched the staff 

that fury could not check, or death 
Hurl back. And as he yielded up the flag 

to gallant Jim Carew, 



MINOR CHORDS. 

He muttered, "Ji^^j ^^.d, give this badge 

to 'Slimmy' Thompson's Sister Sue." 
***** 

'Twas in the early days of "sixty-six" 

a few boys of the ward, 
Who chattered idle talk that evening back 

in "fifty-nine" stood guard 
Around the bones of poor Ned Skelly. 

One had brought them from the ground 
Where loving hands had marked the spot 

just where he fell, within the sound 
Of strife, yet, as he often wished in life. 

Ned was an orphan lad 
With none to mourn he sometimes said, unless — 

and here he would grow sad, 
And silent be. No matter now, he had 

one heart that loved him true 
'Twas she who bore him North to rest — 'twas 

"Slimmy" Thompson's Sister Sue. 



LOOKING FORWARD. 



LOOKING FORWARD. 

Oh, the new hope coming 
And the new songs humming 

Their way upward from nature's breast! 
Oh, the new springs springing 
And the joys they're bringing 

Unseen, unfelt to give Hfe zest! 

Oh, the sweet fresh faces 
That the eye now traces 

Dim in the future here to reign ! 
Oh, the brave souls speeding 
Through the distance, reading 

The world's woe to help its pain! 

Oh, that glorious morrow 
When the men who sorrow 

In narrow grinding ways shall pass, 
And when Christ is living 
In the world giving 

His light of truth to all, not class ! 

Oh, 'tis coming surely 
Is this future purely 

When truth shall reign, and all be just. 
But ye needs must labor. 
Up with sword and sabre 

Of Right clutched firm, who'd reach there first. 



91 



MINOR CHORDS. 



SOLICITATION. 



Lend us a Light, O poet with far eyes ! 

A Light — a spirit Light — from out your heart; 
A gleam refracted from the depthless skies 

Which he beyond the mental sight or chart; 
Those rays of Light which mingle in our life 
And touch a sense above material strife. 

O mystic, seeing far! Lend us a Light — 
A gleam of lofty thought from out the stars, 

And do not measure it in logic's sight. 
For many here are weary of its wars ; 

But make it manifest through art or song ; 

'Tis pure emotion makes the spirit strong. 

Lend us a precious Light, O poet friend, 
And poise the mirror of our soul to truth 

So that the rays reflected here may tend 

To raise our thoughts above our day or youth; 

For we are weary with the silent few 

Of striving only for the things we do. 



MOLLY BRAY. 



MOLLY BRAY. 

"Don't ye think ye could love me a bit if ye tried 

Molly Bray? 

Sure what tay 
Is to woman's faint narves, love is just to the bride. 
Or to every colleen, be she single or tied. 

"Don't ye think ye could love me a wee bit, asthore, 

Moll aroon? 

Sure what Jtme 
Is to birds, and the swate purty flowers, love is more 
To the heart by compare, for it cures ev'ry sore. 

"Don't ye think ye could love me, oh ! just the laist bit, 

Molly mine? 

Sure what wine 
Is to wake, failin' hearts, love is to hearts that's lit 
With the fire of devotion. See ! all lonesome I sit. 

"Arrah ! Moll, must I think ye can't love me at all ? 

Sure for you 

I would do 
Anything on this airth that devotion could call 
To man's aid. Now ye turn yer sweet face to the wall. 

"Oh, thin, fair Molly Bray, though yer mouth doesn't 
spake, 

I still wait 



93 



MINORCHORDS. 

Though 'tis late 
In the night, for a word or a token to take 
Wid me, wrapped up in hope. Oh, to soothe my 
heartache ! 

"Sure I've loved ye for years until now, Moll 
asthore — " 

Here Moll said 

With a red 
Blushing face, "Arrah ! Barty ye'd see, if ye wore 
Any eyes in yer heart, that I love ye galore — 

"And I wouldn't stand listen to ye in that way 

All the night. 

And the light 
Burnin' low an' me father in bed, if yer say 
Wasn't plazin'." Said Bat, "Sure that 's plain as the 
day. 

"An' now, Molly my own, since we both have con- 
fessed. 

Sure I see. 
You'll agree, 
As yer head's stuffed with iligant sinse, p'raps 'tis best 
That you'd fix the ould man. Here,— an' I'll do the 
rest !" 



DECORATION DAY. 



DECORATION DAY.* 

Flowers and gentle plants placed o'er yon grave 
By loving hands, as tributes to the dead 
Who sleep beneath the mound in nature's bed; 

They breathe on world-worn doubting man that wave 

Of comforting philosophy they crave. 

For as we looked up into heav'n with red 

And inflamed eyes and wounded hearts, when sped 

The dreaded angel Death with ruthless glaive. 

And thenceforth doubted, yet you planted there 
Frail flowers in humble faith knowing that o'er 

The Winter storms, the sun of Spring would bear 
The immortal force that rules all nature's store 

And give them full maturity, O fair, 

Ripe flowers ! 'tis thus the dead shall wake once 
more. 

LOSS AND GAIN. 

If we had never sorrows to repair 

Or aching voids within our hearts to fill ; 

If never Winter came to blight the fair 

Young Summer of our spirit, heart and will ; 

If we lost nothing from our cup of Spring 

But walked the golden path, each one a king, 



•Published in The Catholic World. 

95 



MINOR CHORDS. 

How could we strive to reach or yet conceive 
Of all those sorrow joys for which we grieve? 

If we had never known the treasured past, 

Its spirit face and many nameless ties ; 

If music's chords were never sorrow cast, 

Or flitting o'er our life no changing skies ; 
If all instead was one enduring day 
Of purest pleasure — all one festive May, 
How could we bear life's many arduous cares 
Or pure delights — its laughter and its tears? 



CONTEMPLATION. 



CONTEMPLATION, • \ 

'Tis sunset ; now the Master-Painter draws 

His brush, though imperceptible, and gauze 

Spreads o'er the evening sky till misty white 

Dims all the canvas overhead. The bright 

Warm sun that glowed since morn has gone, and hence 

The red-tinged glory fled that lay immense 

Up-piled where dawns the even star. And lo I 

The Artist of Infinity, doth show 

The magic of his hand. In darker hues 

He, with a subtle grace, new light imbues 

The dim o'er-arching colored dome of heav'n. 

And even as we gaze in vast unstriv'n 

Wonderment— ^to seek the cause — the Hand 

That works such art — the sky grows darker, and 

Of the canopy of night, behold, 

A diamond-studded vista is unrolled! 

I know not art of such wise ; I but paint 

In poet's words a phase of nature's quaint 

Though oft-repeated trickery. The force 

That operates within that readless course, 

And shapes the destiny of night, enfolds 

Our lives — ^yes ! that I know — its future molds. 



97 




LOFQ, 



THE MUSICIAN. 



3a2M.. 







^Urttliv tlU. emMit tiUl V:^ »* Sta- >i^ 5««v-^ti, ««u.« -^ <4i<t^ 




««ct ^iw 2(|!;(ivitO.K»«*-fi>*ttr 4wie/ 




£iiifyC^,/. A <^<UJiai 



MINOR CHORDS. 




THE MUSICIAN. 



'lUO.d'MU) nvuM 'j Q/Jt -(m, 1w<i«i« i, m^in, iJatwi. r —t(jH. tii^-^^^y 




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eit^ilAtv '^ 




i:^ ^tLttl'"'^ -Lwu Ai '"->-6- Jitii,,^fVMeu/>ini,tJU. m<C9 




103 



MINOR CHORDS. 



fiM. jifjiwifSuMi^ u^ ..— unLi-M diam^>^''UL<ivut 




* Sitiz. luiiM/LstiKLrii 'VtoiitC, oj ' jsa.<JL/ ^ ^ 




OWW tit. s-KcLdji^ooVMe. turw.- --injiy.- [unwj • £^t /^^ -Ut. iioA.A'&uo 




I04 



THE MUSICIAN. 



V^H,-...<s>t<a. La.ety cL<m-'-^^ tit, cLuUt'tMid^ *^«rviw 't// 




105 



MINOR CHORDS. 





Oilijio/Leitir 


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io6 



JOCKEY MTAVISH. 







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^fitt-iiwul »V oviV tiLc 5£4/ "3i^ h45'-i» fflui«/«,a. t»i. asi t4^ 




107 



MINOR CHORDS. 




Jockey could woo like a Scottish chief 

Tho' no sword or shield wore he. 
Aye, young Jocky could sing like a heather lark 

With a heart and spirit free. 
Till one day near Loch Lomond he met Jennie Wayne ; 

When they parted he parted with bliss, 
For he left in her keeping his stout Scottish heart; 

He now says it was caused by a kiss. 

Refrain, Singing, Hey bonnie lassie, etc. 

Jockey could woo like a gentleman. 

Till he missed his heart one morn. 
Then he traced its home with love's keen eyes. 

While enthralled he cried forlorn. 
"Oh Jennie, sweet lassie, your lad is undone 

Will ye' ' — here Jennie simpered and sighed, 
And they sealed love's compact ; now Jock chaffs as of yore 

Tho' the lassie he loves is his bride, 

Refrain: Singing, Hey bonnie lassie, etc. 



io8i 



JUST AS OF OLD. 



'^oM^d, 



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S-^tt* Ujr^%ijUA Ufoiw. 







%-^iJ>J,/i^/u 



109 



MINOR CHORDS. 




1 10 



JUST AS OF OLD. 



jut eiutld. ftil^ -U «r(N«.£<M ttun^i^J-^ait^ a*ut 




r 1 J V iJ-' ]■ V r V rrt- \ ti-'^-=i 


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MINOR CHORDS. 






tla. oHdo/w. ^a (fi tHa, <Uo t«4. cW 'Soiif 




jiMrturlitUMiLU^-Qm C^'y^-i^J, 



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JUST AS OF OLD. 



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* cJjuJU SoUiu cuS ^ iiM.-oM' "^JZAX/_, .SufaAcUeaMOj/^vitixM^ 




113 



MINOR CHORDS. 




'tis freedom's flag. 



Dedicated to my friend a«T John P. Chidwick ihe g»ll»nl chapl«tn of ihe 'MAINEf 

'Tis Freedoms Flag, The Peoples Flag 



tFord$ by D.S. 



Maestoso. 




J. Col.am . bi . ins when your ban.ner waves to kiss the joy . oas skies What 

2.'Tisa flag that came from freedoms loom its staff grew on that tree It first 




heart that lackstbe pat. riots spark where . in proud love wont rise- 
kissed the breeze on a somjmers morn to sig . nal lib . er '. .. ty — 



For 'tis 
It nf?er 




linked with Glories of death . less fame stories'writ in the nat . ions breast 'Tis the 

flnt . tcr'd o'er mock crown of kingoroncesymboled a, ty «■ rant's will 'Tisyoung 




canrig/ii 1S9S tv J.s.iffim 



115 



MINOR CHORDS. 



sym.bol of coun . try home and right,Aii(l in frel.doma font 'twas Wefesed. Thi> 

freedoms flag the peo , pies flag And it floats o'er a nat.ion stilL .1 




fliitg its folds an.lo the breeze Each true heartloTCsitsprecions sight As: 




'ris F^e0ttOM'i Flag, ttc^ 



116 



THE SINGING SANDS OF DONNIE, 



s^d:BaiU- 'J^_^^i^^^-4f'^'f'^Sis^ 








*(4/^^5-ii..-^ 



117 



MINOR CHORDS. 



t' dUL-h^Xi o. iefy cLc ciuXU VmV, "But tint, Oi"^ o-dU-^ "i Srvuf^j^ 















Its 



THE SINGING SANDS OF DONNIE. 




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{jjta. «fL^ M. xMtlm. uix^ 'CmM tLt, StitiUi. lu, i^i. iluu-cvw '^Mf i!ui<U'^, 




1X9 



MINOR CHORDS. 



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li6 




Reflections 
of ^yyrah 
tfie Mystic 





THE midday sun was lighting up the beautiful val- 
ley of Gath with its rays, when I descended the 
narrow road which led from the home of "Myyrah 
the Mystic" to the world beneath. After many years 
of effort and earnest desire I had visited the venerable 
mystic, looked into his fearless, calm eyes, touched 
his hand, sat with him in communion ; aye more — I 
had broken bread with him and slept under his roof 
as an honored guest. When the hour of parting came 
with its regrets and dim, unspeakable emotions, he 
placed in my hands a paper which he said contained a 
few thoughts which might be of assistance in the more 
vital issues of life's struggles. "The paper you hold 
in your hand," he said, "contains only a few gleams 
of elemental Truth. These gleams are reposing in 
the Bank of the Universe," he added; "present the 
draft to the cashier, my son, and you will be paid. 
That is merely a mystical exemplification of the art 
of reading; for our brothers ordinarily speak as 



123 



MINOR CHORDS. 

though the books and scrolls we mortals write con- 
tain the essence of the ideas and emotions their words 
merely represent. If the philosophy of life unfolded 
in my 'reflections' serves to broaden your vision and 
brings you into touch with humanity — since you cannot 
aspire to God otherwise — perhaps in the after years, 
you may have them published. They may help other 
seekers after light in this world of ours, so wondrous- 
ly beautiful; yet so fraught with despair and dark- 
ness to many." He ended, and divining that the part- 
ing had come, I stooped down and kissed his extended 
hand reverently; then I turned slowly away. When 
night came I was far on my way homeward. From 
the MSS. given me I have selected the follovv^ing. To 
be comprehended they must be studied earnestly; 
meanwhile the reward may repay the effort expended. 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

"As men are born so I, 'Myyrah the Mystic,' was 
born. There was a new and beautiful light in my 
mother's eyes as she looked down into mine on that 
eventful day which thrust me into a world of spirits, 
called men and women. Yet this world was not strange 
to me, although I now know that they referred to me 
in reverent tones as 'little stranger'; for as I opened 
my world-eyes I caught reflections of my tiny soul 
in other eyes around and my ears drank in sounds of 
love and affection with a sense of latent intelligence, 
which came from the depth of the mystery which sur- 
rounded my coming hither, a mystery so profound and 



124 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

beautiful that even Science — which now absorbs the 
superstitions of the learned and which assumes so 
much of infallibility — has not yet bared to the irrev- 
erent eyes of Man. 

"But all men and women, like me, are born in that 
mystery, just as they move in mystery, only to dis- 
appear into its bosom in a few years — a common- 
place fact, sublime in its relativeness to duty and life, 
beside which the quibbling of philosophers and doc- 
trinaires, in sociological questions and all else, are as 
Man's energy compared with the infinite energy of 
the Universe. 

"In reminding our brothers of an inevitable ef- 
fect which follows birth and living on this earth, I, 
'Myyrah,' have no pessimistic purpose in mind, for I 
am an optimist. Though as a child at the feet of the 
philosophers, I do not sing of the cold realities, possi- 
bilities and discords of our sphere alone. Nor do I 
follow the cold, precise language of ordinary prose; 
for as verse elevates the expression of ideas above 
the hard materialistic atmosphere of conventional 
speech, so a higher vehicle is needed for contemplat- 
ing and conversing on our wonderful life and world 
than the mechanical forms of the pedagogue and 
proofreader. 

"Looking back upon my long life — now when 
the rime of nature's white has come into my once 



125 



MINOR CHORDS. 

dark hair and over my eyes, once bright, steals the 
film of physical decay ; when my ears no longer hear 
with the sensitiveness of youth, and all the material 
faculties through which life and soul are manifested 
are surely failing — yet I feel within me a divination 
which unites me in growing and growing bonds of 
tenderness and mystery to the soul and life of nature 
out of which I, as an infant, came. And I cherish 
no reluctance to embrace a state which is as closely 
related to me as my birth, or the earth upon which I 
have been a temporary visitor ; an earth that, perhaps, 
has been a purgatory through which qualification was 
vouchsafed me for a higher life. 

"Looking backward over the development of my 
life and world-soul through the dark years which were 
once mornings, noons and eves — days, weeks and 
months — of light and joy, with nights and seasons of 
sorrow, too — I only wonder with awe and a reverent 
pride in being a tiny atom in the infinite scheme of the 
Universe while participating in its abstract life, to 
which all men are related ; for I behold in my life an 
object lesson in the meaning of existence. 

"Recollection goes backward to a boy who, like 
other boys, loved the spirit of laughter and restless- 
ness above that of thoughtfulness and repose, which 
characteristics come only with the growing maturity 
of the mental faculties, a maturity which finds its real 



126 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

goal only past the threshold of Death. Thus it is, 
the healthy and educated human mind never ceases 
to absorb the reflection of the life around it until it 
ceases to be. And the boy I see through the fond eyes 
of memory becomes more sedate and meditative as 
he grows older; he wonders, he craves to know the 
meaning of everything around, and in his inability to 
comprehend easily he finds an impulse which urges 
him forward on and on. That boy is now the gray- 
haired man called 'Myrrah the Mystic,' a title given me 
in years past because of my tendency to look on ap- 
parently insignificant things in life through the glasses 
of the mystic. 

"As I grew to manhood there came a factor into 
my life named 'books,' in which I discovered strange 
elements; though in the eyes of my companions they 
possessed no element of mystery. And out of the soul 
of books came forth visions, impulses, yearnings, and 
a myriad of emotions to me — some curiously familiar, 
some thrilling me with inspirations which were often 
appalling, sometimes sad, sometimes unutterably pleas- 
urable, sometimes lending to my mind a strange — 
yet not strange — and wonderful strength they called 
'moral.' 

"But I asked myself if all these new emotions 
were really 'new' and original ? Because effects cannot 
be produced without basic conditions, or causes, and 



127 



MINOR CHORDS. 

since there exist natural and spiritual law behind all 
material and mental manifestations, so it must follow 
in line with all known phenomena that these sensa- 
tions I deemed new and strange were not really foreign 
to my being, only in a sense of being further removed 
than others from my intuitiveness. 

"Then as the years sped I found that, like all 
men, latent powers were hidden in my soul which 
could only be rendered manifest by cultivation, study 
and effort, just as ordinary talents in music, art or 
other expressions of natural endowment can be 
brought out and improved by the conventional, yet 
mystical, exercise named 'culture.' It is a truism, as 
indisputable as a mathematical principle, that the 
sense or Intelligence which enables us to discover 
reflections of our own souls — which is the key to 
life — in the heart of books, in the personality of friends 
and foes — reflections both of harmonies and discords — 
in the majesty of the elements, and the infinite life 
of the ocean, in music, in art, and everywhere in Na- 
ture in short, cannot be cultivated out of nothing; 
while every soul is capable under certain conditions, 
latent in the individual, of being cultivated nearer and 
nearer the plane of Perfect Beauty, Perfect Harmony, 
Perfect Love and Perfect Intelligence, which are 
the major attributes of the higher life of the Universe. 

5F -T" "T* ^ *!• 

"Aye, for it is clear to him who has a spiritual 



MYYRAHTHE MYSTIC. 

sight — even without delving in the labored and oft- 
times affected ramifications of philosophic schools — 
that Man is but a part of the soul of Nature, partaking 
of and refracting its discords and harmonies in speech, 
actions, art, and all else, for how could he otherwise 
recognize reflections of his consciousness in so many 
mysterious guises if he did not belong to the universal 
system ? 

:ic :|c ^ ^ :): 

"Meanwhile, know, ye doubters and rash sceptics, 
a purely scientific truism ; namely, that what we know 
as intelligence and consciousness are not bounded by 
the length and breadth or confines of Man's anatomy, 
nor come merely from the material forces generated 
by digestion, but exist primarily in the heart of Na- 
ture, in which he breathes and has his being; not in 
himself. And growing bolder upon the premises of 
physical phenomena, I repeat, with a due respect for 
the sages, that Man's life — meaning his inspirations 
and actions — are not bounded by the confines of his 
anatomy, because if you put him into a closed com- 
partment and cut him off from the Universe by pump- 
ing out the air which connects him with the Universal 
Soul, his life goes out like that of a lamp which is 
extinguished by the displacement of air. Aye, and 
in the process of pumping the air, his very soul and 
life are pumped out. This is no mere metaphor; it 
is a demonstration of Man's relation to God. 

"For another exemplification of Man's immortal 



129 



MINOR CHORDS. 

attributes turn you to the phonograph, and as you 
listen to a piece of music, or a human speech, in which 
you find reflections and phases of various emotions, 
stamped with the psychic individuahty of the speaker 
— emotion meanwhile related to you and me in pro- 
portion to the capacity of our personal constitution, 
intelligence and receptivity — and ask yourself does the 
phonogram or wax cylinder contain the manifesta- 
tions heard within its intrinsic or ponderable structure ? 
The first obvious fact apparent will be that the instru- 
ment is only a medium capable of conversing, repro- 
ducing acoustic effects. If a human voice speaks from 
its depths, the voice of seer, sage, or friend, parent, or 
relative, awakening echoes or reflections of joy, sad- 
ness, love, and the corelative or varied emotions with- 
in our breasts such as we experience in our world 
life, pray where is that voice? Within the limits of 
the phonograph case, you will say. Thus I put the 
paradox. Ah ! foolish men with the eyes only of the 
worldly-wise, know that as Man cannot live, or cre- 
ate thoughts or speech in a vacuum, or as sound can 
not be generated in a vacuum, if you place the pho- 
nograph in a vacuum out of which the breath of the 
Universe has been pumped — to assume such a possi- 
bility — only silence will result. ^ 

^ ^ :K H: ^ 

"And is it not clear by the Light of Science that 
as Sound or any ethereal, imponderable element can 
not be made manifest within material limits which 



130 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

shut out the Universal Soul, so it is that all phases 
of emotion in art and speech coming from out the 
phonograph cannot be reproduced under similar con- 
ditions, because they are not limited to the mere con- 
stitution of the instrument. Furthermore, know that 
all manifestations of the Intelligence of the Universe 
or God, which Man alone is capable of manifesting 
in proportion as he rises higher and higher toward 
the plane of Perfect Intelligence, in inspiration, word 
and deed, cannot be limited in theory to the material 
limits of Man's body. 

H; * * * * 

"Meanwhile he, gifted above all things on earth 
with the attributes we know of, molds words and tones 
into forms of intelligible and subtle acoustic art from 
out of Nature in which he lives, and gives that won- 
derful and mystical instrument, the phonograph, 
the power to call them forth from the Infinite Source 
at the will of other men. Yet let us not think in our 
worldly narrowness of vision that we can shut out the 
Life around and make these messages manifest, for 
the curious indentations on the phonogram only rep- 
resent a draft upon the Bank of the Universe which 
is faithfully paid on demand. Sound, which is the 
chief psychic telegraph between us spirits named men, 
is indeed a fitting medium to serve our exemplifica- 
tion. 

"The psychical spirit which is hidden in the con- 



131 



MINOR CHORDS. 

stitution or organization of words and musical tones 
in which we find reflections of our own souls — reflec- 
tions of harmonies or dissonances according to con- 
ditions — dare I attempt to fathom? No, no! Only 
when I analyze the Eternal Light beyond can I com- 
prehend such mysteries. I only know that my vigils 
and studies have taught me the meaning of the im-. 
mortal life in which I exist, move and think, like all 
men; just as the poets and mystics divine of higher 
planes of Intelligence, Light, Harmony and Love, be- 
yond the limited range of words to express. 

* * sis * * 

"That the Eternal plan is all- just and merciful 
I, Myyrah, know, because as our mental vision broad- 
ens and our sensitiveness to pain and the lower pas- 
sions increase with our mental and spiritual develop- 
ment, so we become more callous, less sensitive to 
pain and terror, less capable of apprehending their 
purport, as we degenerate backward into the animal 
sphere, out of which culture, secular and spiritual, 

alone can raise us. 

***** 

"Moreover, consciousness and life go out before 
severe pain and disease — just as the penalty of sin 
and ignorance becomes stamped on the face and per- 
sonality of individuals — while, on the other hand, the 
law of progression tends first to physical, next intel- 
lectual, development — ever tending onward and on- 
ward. But these are fleeting emotions beside the cul- 



132 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

tivation of the spirit by which the soul is given newer 
and newer sight as we toil upward, until with the 
natural decay of the healthy developed organs, as a 
beautiful flower cultivated by the immortal sense of 
the gardener bursts forth from the external covering 
of decaying fibre, giving forth its glory beyond the 
atomic and imperceptible source in which it grew, 
so the soul on eve of death thrusts aside the useless 
material environment in which it toiled upward, thus 
awakening to a higher consciousness and mission to 
the sight of other eyes beyond. 

"But, to alter the main harmonies of the simile, 
Man is unlike the flower — which depends for its great- 
est perfection upon Man's cultivation, not on natural 
selection or fatalistic evolution — a thinking agent 
gifted with immortal attributes, which he exercises 
as he toils onward through the material world, until 
with the coming of Death he blossoms forth, divining 
and feeling the broader throb of the Universal Soul 
as he feels it in a lesser degree on this earth in his 
ideals and aspirations. 

"Ah! beautiful philosophy of life; so consoling, 
so merciful, so just when gauged by a broader scale 
than that of trivial phenomena or conventional science ! 
Yet some men there are — thinking, reasoning, culti- 
vated men — who doubt the future, if one can right- 
fully call those 'cultivated' who lack spiritual sight 
in these particulars. 

133 



MINOR CHORDS. 

"Foolish, vain men! Not content to quarrel and 
contend with the kernel of text and creed and their 
conservators, they dare to speak dogmatically of the 
spirit and Universal Soul in which they live as 'ma- 
terial and decaying,' even while knowing that, apart 
from everything else in Science, the indestructibility 
of matter and energy are cardinal truisms capable of 
demonstration. Meanwhile, they talk and act as 
though their personal life and thoughts were bounded 
by the length and breadth of their anatomical extrem- 
ities, while unable to account for the origin of the 
very words they utter; not to speak of the supreme 
mystery of incarnation. 

"Ah Man — spirit — linked to the rude elements 
of physiology, how wond'rous are his powers ! Capa- 
ble of dominating, subduing and training the lower 
animals to his needs, by the enforcements of laws 
superior to those of 'natural selection' and fatalistic 
evolution; capable of constructive reasoning and 
psychical communion with other spirits through 
speech ; capable of piercing Space, Time and the Stars 
on the Wings of Imagination ; capable of molding the 
materials of Earth to his purposes and inspirations by 
the light of Art — sometimes called Science when less 
mystical; — empowered to send his spirit around the 
world, under the seas — through the electrical fluid to 
communicate with other spirits ; empowered to mate- 
rialize emotions into literary form, which, by virtue 



134 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

of their intrinsic, yet indefinable, laws of harmony and 
individuality yield the fruits of culture to untold gen- 
erations, while they are conversed in the Universal 
Phonograph of which libraries are but the depots, so 
to speak; capable of molding beautiful conceptions 
filled with the mysterious breath of Universal Har- 
mony from out of the roughly quarried marble, and 
of materializing other phases of Nature's strange emo- 
tions upon the artificial canvas, as though he were a 
child striving in his own way to imitate the greater 
spirit beyond by power of the Light within him ! How 
vain are the mystic's eyes to comprehend all, how 
limited is his vocabulary to express all the wonder he 
beholds I 

SjS SJC ^ 5ji JjC 

"Meanwhile, what an inconsistent and incongru- 
ously constituted creature Man is — even when cul- 
tured — in secular and material things; for without 
an equipoise of spiritual training he is capable of de- 
scending far below the animal level in cunning, treach- 
ery, hypocrisy, and a thousand vices unknown to the 
latter. 

i^ ^ :^ ^ ^ 

"Furthermore, in his superior intelligence he finds 
a vehicle for the satiation of those selfish and brutish 
desires which are bequeathed him with his animal 
environment in an undeveloped form, through which 
he is enabled to sink lower and lower, until premature 
death or Society finally regulate his actions. And in 



135 



MINOR CHORDS. 

the bloody and selfish wars, revolutions, assassinations 
and murders which deck the records of standard his- 
tory, we beheld examples of savagery so utterly shock- 
ing that beside these acts of Men, the wild beasts are 
peaceful and harmless in comparison, 

-t* '"•* -1* *!* ^ 

"Yet, in line with the fact that desperate diseases 
often require desperate remedies, stands the truism 
that Truth often comes disguised in the lurid flames 
of War to administer heroic remedies in the affairs 
of Nations and communities. 

"In comprehending the physical element of life, 
through which intelligence is manifested in Man, it 
will become clear that outside the sphere of vegeta- 
tion, which, like everything on Earth, is linked to a 
quality or phase of Universal Energy or Life, the 
primary characteristics by which we discern life in the 
lower animals are movement and sound. 

"Meanwhile, Man's life is supremely superior in 
quality obviously as compared with other manifesta- 
tions of that element in the lower domain of animal 
Nature. Thus it is we must distinguish between the 
mere attribute of life, with its tributary instincts of 
intelligence, and the spirit in Man, which incontro- 
vertibly dominates other phases of life, since he is 
enabled to improve himself and the subservient forms 
by that immortal Light which is the Intelligence of 
the Universe; limited, however, in his comparatively 
narrow opportunities. 

136 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

"That Life as we behold it in the animal sphere 
is eminently allied to Universal Energy or the Uni- 
versal Soul, is easily apparent — without wading 
through vast scientific treatises. Thus the Ocean 
moves and gives forth sounds; the winds stir the 
trees and make sounds; a river flowing onward is a 
representation of infinite life, while bacK In its moun- 
tain source we may hear it uttering sounds as it dashes 
over rocks, broadening out to reach the wide Ocean. 
Movement of this kind is reflected in the human soul. 
And the 'gentle breezes' or the 'soft, sensuous music' 
of the Ocean as it kisses a sandy beach on a calm sum- 
mer day, find their reflections in all forms of life. 
***** 

"All other phases of Nature's moods may be also 
found reflected in the abstract sphere of life. It is the 
poet, ordinarily mistaken for a mere dreamer, who 
perceives the relation of Infinite Energy at large more 
readily than the physicist or paradoxical philosopher; 
for what we know as metaphors, analogies and simi- 
les, are but reflections of subtle harmonies and laws 
which unite all Nature; nature differentiated into 
various phases of life and energy. Thus, when he sings 
of 'the tide of battle,' the 'storms of War,' 'the Ocean 
black with terrible rage,' or in more peaceful tones 
of other familiar analogies between sleep and death, 
love and harmony, and so on, he merely illustrates ab- 
solute truisms, which prosaic phrase cannot measure 
or express definitely, but which touch and awaken 



137 



MINOR CHORDS. 

receptive chords in the breast of cultured Man. Nov- 
elists and other writers also manifest like powers of 
expression, while musical composers can simulate an 
extensive scale of emotions in their art. The artist 
and sculptor can also materialize on canvas and in 
stone reflections of Nature's varied moods in various 
accepted art forms. 

-i* ^ ^ ^ ^ 

"Meanwhile all Forms in literature, music, archi- 
tecture and art possess an intrinsic individuality based 
upon indefinable and subtle harmonies to which the 
cultured mind yields instinctive reverence. Thus, a 
short story written by a master hand may be found 
to be as perfectly rounded and individualized as a 
lengthy novel of a like stamp, the same characteris- 
tics being manifest in a play, a work of history, a 
poem, an essay, and all other finished literary produc- 
tions. Equally is this true of the various musical 
forms, sonata or dance, symphony or oratorio. The 
same is applicable to recognized schools and forms 
in painting and sculpture; while in architecture it is 
obvious that a cottage or castle, a temple or monu- 
ment, can all be stamped with individuality such as 
we see duplicated in the flowers, and all through the 
perceptible world of Nature. Individualism in arti- 
ficial forms, however, is manifested necessarily through 
Man, since Man is the agent who conceives and works 
out all these phases of wonder. Man in turn is to 
himself complete, yet his individuality in the abstract 



138 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

is but a reflex of the supreme or universal Individu- 
ality which can only be reached through countless 
other phases of individualisms which lead on and on 
upward through spiritual culture and the expansion 

of the Ego. 

H« * * * * 

"But let us not fear that those affinities of touch, and 
voice, and spirit, which we have met and mourned and 
loved on Earth shall be banished from our future lives, 
though perhaps we may not meet them again in world 
shape. It is not absolutely necessary to have human 
eyes to be capable of loving, since the blind — even the 
deaf, dumb and blind — manifest that attributive sense. 
And let us not think that it is the mere externals which 
contain the spirit we love, since the form and face 
and denomination serve us merely as methods of in- 
dividualizing and recognizing those around us. It is 
the spirit speaking through the clay that we love, not 
the material casing; though the relation of one to the 
other naturally excites reverence. Hence it is that we 
worship tokens and mementoes of dead and absent 
friends, and when their bodies cease to live with their 
spirits we place them tenderly away in Nature's bed, 
with tears and regret in our hearts. 

"But if we never again behold the external forms 
of those we love on Earth, what matters it when in 
the after years our souls will meet and recognize the 
affinities of touch, and voice, and emotions which come 



139 



MINOR CHORDS. 

to US on this earth from out of God's sphere of har- 
mony in other guises ? Why should we care for eyes, 
hands, and lips of clay (warmed with spirit of life) ; 
why should we care for our language of limitation 
and environment — the language of lips and art, and 
weak symbolism — for the pleasure they bring com- 
pared with the fusion of those subtle harmonies 
through soul into soul in the newer planes of life be- 
yond? 

"And thus as I write filled with unspeakable and 
inexpressible vision of future possibilities, beyond the 
power of words or art to fittingly express, I know that 
this faculty of vision — which belongs to all men who 
study it — has a logical and physical basis; for all 
these things which we conceive in our hopes and as- 
pirations are possible — ^mark ye! — when sanctified by 
the breath of Harmony and Intelligence. But though 
the poet sings that every soul is 'capable of nurturing 
raging hells' within itself as well as boundless love and 
spirituality, science and every phenomena of life prove 
that in all-wise and beneficent order of things, Man's 
capacity for suffering pain and torture, mental and 
physical, is limited absolutely and clearly; because 
these are incompatible with physical, mental, or spirit- 
ual progress — (I except the penalties of self-abnega- 
tion, which, however, must come from Man's volition 
and intelligence in order to yield fruit). In the first 
place, morbid thoughts or imaginings if persisted in 



140 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

would unseat the reason, and without the faculty of 
apprehending or reasoning intense suffering is not pos- 
sible — a wise provision which limits mental torture; 
but men shrink naturally from the thought of losing 
reason, their most priceless heritage. 

"It is equally demonstrated in the physical sphere 
that pain and torture cannot be applied to the human 
organization beyond a certain limited point, or death 
will follow. And without the power of consciousness 
and thinking one cannot conceive of pain or suffer- 
ing. The border line, meantime, between conscious- 
ness and unconsciousness is one so slender it may be 
temporarily effaced by a drug, or by hypnotic means. 

^ ^ ^ ^ 2jC 

"Thus it is apparent that the human imagination 
is limited in the sphere of dissonance and darkness, 
indicating that the capacity of consciousness and life 
in relation to suffering is already marked out in the 
supreme chart of the Universe; while on the other 
side soul and life are nurtured and sustained by those 
conceptions of Harmony, Love and Peace which lead 
tis up nearer and nearer to the Intelligence beyond, 
according to that wise and beneficent plan in which 
we men are participants. That light of intelligence 
which enables us to identify ourselves in the Ego, 
though degraded to our passions and basest instincts, 
can only be nourished and manifested in the environ- 
ment of concord and peace. When we degenerate, as 



141 



MINOR CHORDS. 

SO frequently remarked, that light becomes dimmer 
and dimmer; when the action of the brain is dis- 
ordered from disease or morbid thinking it becomes 
equally dim; and as the heart becomes disordered 
acute consciousness is also reduced in power. The 
analogy when contemplated conveys a profound lesson 
in the scheme of life. While proving that the penalty 
of sin and wrongdoing is mental and spiritual dark- 
ness, it unfolds to our vision upon the side of Har- 
mony and Truth, a glorious vista of evolution, the 
spirit and consciousness in the Ego broadening out 
and out toward infinity beyond, under subtle condi- 
tions, Man's power to schedule or even comprehend. 

"I have stood in the midst of a city's wonders 
where once the buffalo and red man roamed. Over 
my head on steel rails ran iron horses propelled by 
the energy of Nature chained down to Man's spirit- 
ual power. Near by were men building beautiful 
mansions, assisted by agencies named 'mechanical/ 
while some were removing earth and large rocks by 
a process called 'blasting,' to make room for the found- 
ations of other houses. I, 'Myyrah,' only contem- 
plated and wondered at these commonplace evidences 
of Man's strange powers. Then I walked the streets, 
beholding a thousand yet more wonderful things. 
Night fell, the sun was shining on the antipodes be- 
yond, yet within every home there was light reflected 
from the Universal Reservoir. This was manifested 



142 



M Y Y R A H T PI E MYSTIC. 

in various forms, through candles, lamps and con- 
duits, while abroad on the streets the sun had also 
been artificially duplicated. Yet, in the sight of all 
these evidences of Man's immortality and relationship 
to the Universal Intelligence, men were doubting and 
disputing about their personal mutability in sceptic 
phrases as though there was nothing on earth to won- 
der at, even while unconscious of the origin of the 

very thoughts they uttered. 

***** 

"So the years passed in my curious life of pon- 
dering and searching after elemental Truth, in which 
I, 'Myyrah,' found a delicious joy that many money 
Kings would give all they had to share if they only 
realized it. But it so happens according to the sub- 
lime adjustment that money alone cannot purchase the 
dreamer's heart or the scholar's brain in their intact- 
ness, though it can purchase their prostitution ; for do 
we not behold men on every hand prostituting genius 
through sycophancy and hypocrisy in order to win the 
favors and smiles of monied ignorance — not honest, 
unaffected ignorance, but ignorance tricked out in the 
purchased garments created by artist and scholar. 
***** 

"Of doubts and fears I have also had my share 
like all men; for while contemplating the wonders 
of earth I grew temporarily indifferent to the wonders 
of the soul. But an awakening came. One day, 
wearied in brain from thinking and discussing with 



143 



MINOR CHORDS. 

sages of various schools, and utterly worn out in mind, 
I passed me by a Church. It was evening — a Sabbath 
evening — with that delicious calm in the air which 
comes from the Man's influence over and connection 
with the subtle spirit of Nature. The pealing organ, 
with its soft tones and unaffected harmonies, came to 
my ears, bringing to my soul reflections of a soothing 
and peaceful spirit from out of the Universe of which 
it was but a part. The unconscious medium manipu- 
lating the manuals and stops which placed him in 
control of that mysterious language coming from the 
heart of the instrument, may have little divined of 
his own mission or powers, yet I felt the influence of 
his manifested intelligence at that moment. Attracted 
thither by a nameless impulse I passed into the build- 
ing, and as I saw the hard faces of conventional pagans 
and Christian materialists grow a trifle more tender 
and humane as they entered the sanctuary — many 
going for good form's sake, or to conciliate their more 
spiritual wives — the harsh, muscular activity in step 
and movement which is associated with worldly 'hust- 
ling,' giving way to more gentle and nervous actions, 
thus softening the harsh lines in men's faces, bringing 
into the dulled eyes a newer light and lending to the 
personality a newer beauty — I was brought back to 
the knowledge of fundamental and simple truths. In 
the sight of these men and women kneeling there in 
congregation filled with expression of higher reflec- 
tions of the Universe — ^though doubtless largely tinged 



144 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

with the selfishness of the outer world, and the hypoc- 
risy of social formalities — I beheld an eloquent and 
sublime though humble lesson which lifted from my 
disordered mind a cloud of doubts and discords. Thus 
was I. again brought into touch with Truth; thus 
were the scales removed from my sight. That the 
minister looked and acted with artistic skill what he 
in his heart may not have believed or understood, did 
not lower the value of the intrinsic ceremony or its 
meaning in my eyes. When he, however, mounted 
the pulpit and overlooking the lesson and practical 
Truth, began to twist text and exercise his oratorical 
faculties with ill-concealed conceit I softly departed. 
Ah men, men! Learn more of truth than of oratory; 
practice more than you preach; leave controversy 
and quibbling to the materialists, lest people suspect 
that you, too, are hypocrites with the vision only of 
the worldly wise. Know you, that as man is a child 
before he is a man ; that as one must learn the ele- 
ments of any science before attaining a comprehension 
of the principles; so it follows that you cannot com- 
prehend or love God before you fail to comprehend or 
love your brothers, though you are qualified in all the 
theological colleges on earth. You cannot love God 
if your soul is so small that it cannot love mankind. 
Aye ! know you, that until you have cultivated Human- 
ism you cannot aspire to Godliness. When you have 
passed through college it is only then your true edu- 
cation begins. 



145 



MINOR CHORDS. 

"What a sublime mission is yours ! Living in the 
contemplation of the true and beautiful; given ample 
opportunities to cultivate spiritual instincts and divine 
attributes; learning to pity and love humanity from 
year to year as your inner soul expanded, you could 
carry the light of an Infinite Intelligence with its con- 
comitants of Harmony and Peace into the lives of the 
poor and unhappy, giving their darkened souls 
glimpses of another sphere where Peace, Harmony 
and Light dwell, through your mediumship. In the 
tender, kindly voice charmed with holy earnestness; 
in the touch of a sympathetic hand upon your brother's 
or sister's aching forehead; in the light of your eyes 
and voice, would he manifest a divine spirit such as 
Christ brought on earth, and surely the consciousness 
of being so close to the higher life of the Universe 
would be compensation ample and supreme, apart from 
all else. There are, however, thousands and thousands 
of our brothers and sisters subserving such noble as- 
pirations; soft-voiced women and kindly priests of 
many denominations who give their lives to benefit 
their kind; also kindly men abroad in the world — 
poets and reformers, scholars and dreamers of voice 
and pen — all seeking in their practical love for human- 
ity the reward which brings them nearer and nearer to 
other spheres of which we all have an unfathomable 
comprehension. 

"There are strong men, too, who rise up in the hours 
146 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

of emergency as neotypes of heroes of the past, in 
whose sight the blood of tyrants and the sacrifices of 
patriots count as nothing where Right and Truth are 
concerned. And Truth comes ofttimes with fire and 
sword; often only to suffer defeat, too — strange as it 
may seem. But the defeat is at most only temporary ; 
for in the broad scale of the Universe centuries are 
reckoned as days in ours, and never a community or 
Nation yet remained immutable when capable of gross 
tyranny or violations of moral laws. The pages of 
history bear evidences of this. 

:|c ^ H: :!: ^ 

"Looking round them in their world-life contempla- 
tively, thinking, cultured men behold through the light 
within them a thousand inconsistencies and apparent 
incongruities in the order of things to which the ig- 
norant and unthinking are oblivious. These faults 
are, moreover, made the basis of doubt and unbelief 
by foolish sceptics, who forget that the intelligience 
by which they gauge the things below is but a reflec- 
tion of a higher scale of intelligence which they must 
reach in spirit before awakening in its consciousness 
in material shape. 

***** 

"What an inconsistent creature is man ! In ignor- 
ance he would be content, yet in education and the up- 
per-consciousness brought him by culture he beholds 
only a development which he credits to his own 
egoism. 



147 



MINOR CHORDS. 

"The clashing of creeds, races, national systems 
philosophic schools and all other phenomena of like 
order, have an obvious meaning despite their apparent 
inconsistency, I hold ; for as mental and spiritual cul- 
ture in man are conditioned and elevated in quality 
through the cultivation of fortitude in meeting and 
striving to overcome these antagonisms with which 
he has to contend, so families, races and Nations, 
which are but composite bodies made up individualities, 
are likewise strengthened and elevated by aiming to at- 
tain what is essential in their varied conceptions and 
systems. It is, furthermore, plain that we all intuit- 
ively respect our adversaries in creeds, governmental 
and National beliefs when they fight us with the weap- 
ons of dignity and sincerity and according to noble 
standards. And here is the supreme truism which 
justifies the friction of all antagonisms. 

***** 

"Consistency to our own honest beliefs in all things 
is a supreme virtue, if with this attitude we practice 
tolerance toward our adversaries. Moreover, if, in 
the mysterious developments of life, conflicts ensue 
(in which we are necessarily compelled to assume 
either an offensive or defensive part) we are in the 
Right, strange as it may seem, — mark you; — if we 
only fight according to noble and moral standards. 

***** 
"It would be vain, foolishly vain, to refuse to see 
that many glorious examples of self-abnegation and 

148 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

noble deeds have taken place in the battle-field in the 
shadow of death, under the flag of home, country and 
honest belief. There are times also when it is impos- 
sible to avert revolution and wars. Coming into the 
lives of Nations and people, as accidents occur to in- 
dividuals in ordinary life, they have to be met with 
the weapons of fortitude and opportunism. In those 
crises only weaklings shrink from the 'stern logic of 
necessity.' And as with an individual who meets with 
a dangerous accident it is necessary to have a limb re- 
moved in order to live — in which the unfortunate pa- 
tient concurs of necessity, since he is given the choice 
of two momentous alternatives, — so it is that Nations 
are compelled to rush at each other's throat, through 
force of laws over which they have no control. 

"In this sense I hold that both sides are in the Right 
equally, if they struggle according to chivalric and 
lofty standards. Moreover, I dare to solve the prob- 
lem of the apparent inconsistencies here referred to — 
those which are discovered in the clashing of creeds 
and philosophies especially — by claiming that all Men 
are in the right when each individual believes sincerely 
in his own conviction — mark ye, — that is, when the 
intellectual and moral quality of what he believes in 
is of a high standard. Without the later qualification 
one might rightly interpret the foregoing theory into 
an apology for all crimes ; because a thief may be- 
lieve that he is in the right also in defying those moral 
laws which are linked with the evolution of personal 
Man and composite society. 



149 



MINOR CHORDS. 

"There is, however, much that I, 'Myyrah,' or no 
Man can explain, yet back of all phenomena there is 
supreme Harmony in the abstract ; of that I am con- 
scious. 

"Were those who suffer pain and bodily infirmities 
(acquired or inherited through the crimes of ances- 
tors, or the selfishness of society) compelled by Nat- 
ural law to live on to the limit of life written down 
for those in health ; or if the penalty of severe mental 
torture or cerebral defection were not insanity, idiocy 
and other apparent results, Nature's scheme would be 
cruelty indeed. But the operation of cause and effect 
in this respect is manifestly beneficent and tender ; but 
aside from the temporary indications of relief in that 
order of phenomena, and behind all lies the valley of 
Death, beautiful Death, so strangely and wonderfully 
close to us. In comparison with the abstract plan our 
world existence is a very very brief spell, in which 
suffering means comparatively nothing when looked 
at broadly. 

"In the strange spectacle of Men of honesty and fine 
intellignce ranged in opposite camps in religion, philos- 
ophy, and other vital questions, we are given ample 
food for curious study. Some are inclined to doubt 
the potency of logic or reason in the sight of such in- 
congruities, and are at loss to reconcile them even with 
the theory advanced regarding conviction and Right; 
for leaders in thought should at least be capable of 



150 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

seeing farther than the mass of less intellectual people. 
'Surely they could unite in the worship of elementary 
principles apart from the antagonisms induced by indi- 
viduality, race or National environment!' some one 
may exclaim. True, yet it is plain that there is in 
every creed and belief to which intelligent minds sub- 
scribe support, some elements of Truth, and Truth is 
so bright and beautiful that a very few elemen- 
tary rays shining through a thousand inconsistencies 
and irregularities in a philosophy or system suffice to 
illuminate the whole with an atmosphere of their own 
splendor. Those who cannot behold these inconsist- 
encies and faults as they may be apparent to others 
standing in other points of view, are — who can gain- 
say it? — of necessity in this Right in believing in and 
worshiping what appears to be sanctified by the light 
of Truth ; while on the other hand they may behold the 
incongruities and errors in the creed or system in which 

we the others believe. 

***** 

"Meanwhile there are conflicting issues on all sides ; 

otherwise there would be unanimity in the dogmas of 

Jew, Roman Catholic and Protestant; still all are in 

the Right when they live up to the spirit and essence 

of their beliefs. For my part I am a Catholic. Of 

those Eastern religions little can be said. 

* * * * :t: 

"That those who follow in the ways of Confucius, 
Buddha, and Mahomet are also in the Right is true,^ 
but it cannot be forgotten that these systems are sup- 



151 



MINOR CHORDS. 

ported by Nations temporarily inferior in intelligence 
and culture to the Caucasians and Hebrews, and the 
essential quality and character of religion or belief 
must be taken into consideration obviously in the prem- 
ises of the theory advanced. 

"Christianity is the most divine of all religions, be- 
cause it is the most utilitarian and humane and it has 
come down to our time in the van of the high progress, 
as the conservator of those fundamental truths and 
moral laws sifted from the Old Testament, while it 
created a New Testament to redeem mankind from the 
corruptions which grew up under the old spiritual and 
governmental principles, to which the pages of the 
Old Testament bear witness in its stories of cruelty 
and materialism. 

"Christ the Redeemer rose up in those dark days 
from out the soul of the Universe to kindle a newer 
light in the world ; thus he became the Redeemer. He 
taught the true Gospel of spiritual elevation; he 
preached the relation of all people to God alike, apart 
from wealth or poverty ; he taught newer conceptions 
of sociology, which have only been partly realized even 
at present, and in his supreme code of ethics, morals 
and philosophy as reflected in his teachings and those 
of his followers, are anticipated almost all of those 
mystical, spiritualistic, and sociological views now put 
forth in elaborated forms, as the result, of Evolution. 
In fact one may find within the Bible nearly all of those 



152 



MYYRAH THE MYSTIC. 

rays of elemental Truth that serve as the illuminating 
essence which light up the ramifications of the stand- 
ard paradoxical philosopher with intelligence. Chris- 
tianity has also purified and elevated the ancient He- 
brew religion as it is known in Gentile communities, 
out of which it was partly evolved. 

"No straining of logic or exhibition of clever sophis- 
try can separate Christianity from the high social evol- 
utions in past and contemporary life. All reformers 
worthy the name have felt its influence either directly 
or in their social life; without it democracy and con- 
stitutional governments — in the virtues of which Ag- 
nostic, Jew, Gentile and Christian share alike — would 
be unknown. Yet it has not yet been fully and truly 
interpreted. Its standards and ideals are so perfect, 
that it remains for future generations to, if possible, 
do it justice. 

***** 

"What of the present generation of men, meanwhile 
— what shall become of you and me who can place our 
hands on our breasts, knowing and comprehending 
ourselves in the Ego? That is the question of ques- 
tions among intellectual and thinking scholars. I, 
'Myyrah,' will not pretend to answer it further; yet I 
am personally content with my individual solution of 
the problem, believing that the vision acquired through 
the fruits of study and effort — in which even our very 
brothers who deride immortality beneficently share — 



153 



MINOR CHORDS. 

as well as the practice of the virtues as far as possible, 
will bring their reward in the reawakenment of the 
Ego in those broader planes beyond; those planes of 
existence which we know of by that mysterious pres- 
ence which enables us to see the defects in our present 
world-life and surroundings by comparison. 

^ SjC >fi ^ 5}t 

"But our earth is still full of light, mystery and joy. 
Let us not fail to reverence this life and its effects 
while divining of other spheres, since all are connected 
by mystical evolutionary ties. 

"To be fully understood these reflections must be 
studied earnestly. If they shall succeed in exhibiting 
our world life in a newer and more mystical light to 
students, as the abode of spirits created with strange 
powers — powers manifest and latent — ^then indeed 
shall 'Myyrah the Mystic' be rewarded. Standing near 
the border line with failing sight and palsied, feeble 
touch, I await the summons of Death, with a fearless 
trust in my soul. Were it possible to give me back my 
young heart and blood again, to reincarnate me on this 
earth, I would not exchange that reality for the divin- 
ation which bids me prepare for a higher reincarnation. 
I await it reverently — wonderingly." 

* :4: i|< >|c :Jt 

Here the paper terminates. 



SEP 18 19C5 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 

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